Pitzer in the News 2007-2007 Academic Year

Author Jackie Levering-Sullivan on front page of Walla Walla Union Bulletin

Author draws on personal history, Walla Walla's past in `Annie's War'

By Sheila Hagar of the Union-Bulletin (Walla Walla, WA)

It's true, each person can make a difference in another's life. And real tolerance and acceptance is not etched in official policies, but by the actions of individuals.

That's the message young readers will get from "Annie's War,'' the author hopes.

She learned those lessons herself in Walla Walla during World War II, explained Jackie Sullivan from her home in the Los Angeles area. On the corner of Third and Eagon avenues, to be specific.

This town always was a comfortable place for the author. It was here she spent part of each summer as a youngster under the watchful and patient eye of her grandmother.

Hattie Howard ran The Corner Grocery at 502 S. Third Ave. When the young Jackie arrived each summer, she was allowed to help out around the store. Looking back, she's not sure how much help she actually provided, Sullivan said. "My grandmother found things to keep me busy.''

Working at The Corner Grocery was a treat. Howard lived in a house attached to the shop, which put her granddaughter in close proximity to the ice cream supply. "What kid wouldn't like that?'' the writer asked.

"For me as a kid, Walla Walla was always this magical place. I just liked being with my grandmother.''

Like Annie in the book, Sullivan came to live here for her sixth-grade year, which she spent at Paine School. Her mother had remarried and her new stepfather wasn't wild about having a kid underfoot. she believed. "My feeling, as a child, was that I was sent away from home.''

Sullivan believes her mother instinctively knew, as well, that her daughter's inability to fully recover from an emergency appendectomy was the result of tension in the house.

Even as she missed her mother terribly, being sent to her beloved grandmother and the neighborhood store made everything better.

Eventually, that year of her life made for a book.

It was during the war and soldiers were stationed at Walla Walla military bases. Hattie Howard, in addition to owning the store, owned some small rental units. A black soldier and his wife, fleeing the segregation of base life, rented an apartment over the store.

The wife was Gloria, the protagonist in Sullivan's book. Neither the author or her family members could remember Gloria's last name 60 years later, so Sullivan chose "Washington'' for ``Annie's War.''

Gloria was kind and beautiful, Sullivan said. The real Gloria was married, the fictionalized character lost her fiance in the war. "I didn't want to deal with a lot of characters,'' Sullivan explained. "I wanted to focus on the relationship between Annie and Gloria.''

Her grandmother's neighbors were not so keen on having a black couple living in the neighborhood, Sullivan said. Giving her renter a job was one way to elevate Gloria's standing and justify the living arrangement.

For Sullivan, and her alter ego, Annie, being around Gloria became a pivotal point of her life. "Here was this wonderful black woman who was in my life at a time I felt rejected.''

In "Annie's War,'' the young girl's Uncle Billy felt differently. As a 19-year-old just back from the war, Billy is surly and hardened. After he throws racial slurs at Gloria, Annie's grandmother makes him move out.

The scenes work to demonstrate the prejudice prevalent in America at the time. While she could unearth no mention of the book's cross burning in Walla Walla, her research showed there were documented instances in other parts of the state, Sullivan said.

Now semiretired from a teaching profession, Sullivan's time in Walla Walla didn't end after that year. She continued to come visit her grandmother, learning to make change and wrap meat, "as neat and tidy as a Christmas package.'' Later, summers included working in the Valley's pea harvest and attending the University of Oregon.

Her grandmother's shop is long gone - but her house still marks the spot, Sullivan said. Walla Walla has changed dramatically, no longer the sleepy agricultural hamlet of "Annie's War.'' Still, the author can't wait to return for the book signing. "I still hold in my head the image of the Walla Walla of when I was a child. It's like a parallel universe.''