Eudora Welty House & Garden

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) is pleased to announce the opening of the Eudora Welty House & Garden (EWHG) Potting Shed. The Garden Club of Jackson awarded a grant to the Eudora Welty Foundation to renovate the interior of the Welty family garage, which was originally built along with the family home in 1925 and has been converted into a much-needed potting shed and workshop.

“For the first time, this potting shed allows our garden volunteers, Cereus Weeders, a proper, dedicated space with the right equipment they need to do the weekly, hands-on work of preserving the Welty garden,” said Jessica Russell, EWHG director. “It also provides the EWHG a special opportunity to serve our local community.

Both Eudora Welty’s prose and personal correspondence are rich with imagery from the natural world. Eudora Welty once said, “I wish I had a sign to tell me what I had better do that day, write or work in the garden.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author mentioned in her published works more than 150 types of plants and flowers, many of which grow around her home to this day.

For Eudora Welty, gardening was not a distraction from her writing; it was an inspiration for it. Her biographer, Dr. Suzanne Marrs, observed that for Welty, “the garden and writing were linked at some profound level.”

The design team, Arkansas-based company Natural State Design, LLC (NSD), hand-selected aged materials, board by board, to blend with the building’s historic period. NSD worked closely with Welty staff and retired garden consultant Susan Haltom to meet a wide variety of needs and purposes.

Today, the Welty garden is largely maintained by the dedicated “Cereus Weeders,” a volunteer organization named after Eudora Welty’s Night-Blooming Cereus Club, a group of friends who frequently entertained themselves by attending Night-Blooming Cereus flower-watching parties in Jackson in the 1930s.

For more information call 601-576-6934 or email info@mdah.ms.gov.

Pamela J. Merryman, a doctoral student at Southern Methodist University, has been named the 2022 Eudora Welty Fellow. Merryman will use archival holdings at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) to research how Eudora Welty constructed her identity in her writing.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to conduct research in the Eudora Welty archives and am grateful to those who make the Eudora Welty Research Fellowship possible,” said the 2022 Welty Fellowship recipient. “Through my research in the Welty archives, I hope to gain a deeper and broader knowledge of the personal inspiration and creative process that went into Welty’s writing of her only children’s book, The Shoe Bird. Ultimately, I seek to note how this entertaining tale of Arturo the Parrot and the bird community—who gather from all over the world to learn about the power and value of communication, love, memory, and freedom—provides insight into Welty’s other literary works that also explore these vital aspects of the human experience."

Established by MDAH and the Eudora Welty Foundation, the fellowship seeks to encourage and support research in the Eudora Welty Collection by graduate students.

“We’re grateful to the Foundation for their continued support of the fellowship,” said David Pilcher, director of the MDAH Archives and Record Services Division. “I am certain Ms. Merryman will learn a lot and make extensive use of the Welty Collection this summer.”

After receiving her BA in secondary education from Howard Payne University, Merryman completed her MA in liberal arts at Southern Methodist University where she is currently working toward her PhD. Merryman will use the $5,000 fellowship to cover travel, housing, and other expenses incurred while doing primary research at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building in Jackson.

Beginning in 1957, and over the course of more than forty years, Welty donated materials to the department, primarily literary manuscripts and photographs. At her death her remaining papers were bequeathed to MDAH and included unpublished manuscripts and 14,000 items of correspondence with family, friends, scholars, young writers, and noted writers.

The Eudora Welty Collection is the world’s finest collection of materials related to Welty and one of the most varied literary collections in the United States.