Date(s): 1960-1986; n.d.
Size: 0.33 cubic ft.
Restrictions: Collection may be viewed: the photocopying restrictions for the Welty (Eudora) Collection (Z/0301.000/S) apply to items authored by Eudora Welty in this collection as well.

 
Biography:
Ruth M. Vande Kieft

Born in Holland, Michigan on September 12, 1925, Ruth Marguerite Vande Kieft was the daughter of Pastor John. M. Vande Kieft and Cornelia “Kate” Bogard Vande Kieft. Though from the upper Midwest, she spent much of her early life in Paterson, New Jersey. She had one older sister, Clarice Nancy (Vande Kieft) Ribbens, who died in 2018.

Vande Kieft received a bachelor of arts degree from Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and then earned a master of arts degree followed by a doctoral degree from the University of Michigan in 1957. She also studied at Oxford University, University of California, and Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in Vermont. Vande Kieft was a professor of English at Queens College-CUNY who retired in 1991 after a career of more than thirty years. In addition to Queens College, Vande Kieft also taught at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts; Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey. She contributed numerous articles to edited collections and to a range of academic journals. She specialized in Southern literature and was an early scholar of Eudora Welty’s fiction. Her 1962 book, Eudora Welty, published by Twayne Publishers, Inc., is often referenced as the first comprehensive book-length study of Welty’s fiction.

Vande Kieft died of cancer in her Manhattan apartment on October 27, 1992 at the age of 67, and she is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery near her parents in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

 
Related Collections:

Welty (Eudora) Collection (Z.0301.000/S). Series 29b, Select Correspondence, Box 204. Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

 
Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of four series: Correspondence, Manuscripts, Photographs, and Printed Materials. The Correspondence series includes fifteen items exchanged by Vande Kieft and Welty between 1960 and 1984. Twelve of these were written by Welty. Undated correspondence is arranged after the dated materials.

This collection also includes an untitled draft of an essay by Vande Kieft used as the “Introduction” to her 1977 revised edition of Thirteen Stories, four black and white 5x7 photographs, and a printed program of the 1986 Queens College presidential inauguration during which the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters was conferred upon Welty.

 
Series Identification:

Series 1: Correspondence. 1960-1986; n.d.

The majority of letters in this series concern materials for the original or revised editions of Vande Kieft’s two major works on Welty, Eudora Welty (1962 and 1987) and Thirteen Stories By Eudora Welty (1965 and 1977). Other letters address upcoming conferences and public presentations, the conferring of an honorary degree to Welty from Queens College, and matters of a general and personal nature.

Box 1, folders 1-5

 

Series 2: Manuscript. [ca. 1976-1977].

This series folder contains an original thirteen-piece typescript of what appears to be a draft for the “Introduction” to the 1977 revised edition of Vande Kieft’s Thirteen Stories by Eudora Welty originally published in 1965. The manuscript contains numerous edits and some commentary in both Welty and Vande Kieft’s handwriting.

Box 1, folder 6

 

Series 3: Photographs. n.d.

This series consists of four 5x7 black and white photographs. One image was taken by professional photographer Jill Krementz and used in Vande Kieft’s 1987 revised edition of Eudora Welty. The other three photographs were taken at Bill’s Greek Tavern, a local restaurant in Jackson, which Welty and friends often patronized, particularly on her birthday. Two of these three photographs include Vande Kieft.

Box 1, folder 7

 

Series 4: Printed Materials. November 6, 1986.

This series includes a Queens College program celebrating the inauguration of Shirley Strum Kenny as the Seventh President of the college. Welty was conferred with the college’s Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree during the ceremony. The program contains signatures and inscriptions to Vande Kieft from Shirley Strum Kenny, Joel Canarroe (then-President of the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and Professor of English at New York University) and Welty.

Box 1, folder 8

 

Box List:

Folder 1: Correspondence, February 8, 1960 - June 26, 1963.
Folder 2: Correspondence, August 15, 1963 - September 5, 1963.
Folder 3: Correspondence, June 29, 1964 - August 1, 1964.
Folder 4: Correspondence, February 25, 1978 - August 4, 1984.
Folder 5: Correspondence, n.d.
Folder 6: Manuscript (untitled) by Ruth M. Vande Kieft, n.d. [ca. 1976-1977].
Folder 7: Photographs, n.d.
Folder 8: Queens College program, November 6, 1986.