Campus & Beyond A Prof and Alum Memorializes a Nobelist’s Time in Ithaca Stories You May Like MD Keeps Adventure Travelers Healthy on the High Seas For Generations of Alums, ‘Straight Cookies’ Were a Beloved Treat Meet Some of the (Many!) Cornellians Who’ve Won the Nobel Thomas Campanella, MLA ’91, spearheaded the installation of a historic marker near campus honoring author Pearl Buck, MA ’25 Editor’s note: This story was adapted from a feature in the Cornell Chronicle. By James Dean When she arrived in Ithaca in 1924 to pursue a master’s degree, Pearl Sydenstricker Buck, MA ’25, was an aspiring novelist; her husband, John Lossing Buck 1914, MS ’25, PhD ’33, was a star acolyte of farm economist George Warren, namesake of CALS’ Warren Hall. Over the next academic year, Pearl received influential mentorship from English professor Martin Sampson, with whom she would share the manuscript of her first novel, and gained the confidence to pursue a writing career. By the time the couple returned to Ithaca from China—this time so Lossing, as he was known, could begin doctoral studies—Pearl was a household name, newly crowned winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for The Good Earth. Five years later she would become the first American woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China.” (Toni Morrison, MA ’55, was the second.) Now, 86 years after she accepted the Nobel medal in Sweden, a historic marker will commemorate Pearl’s work as a writer and humanitarian who introduced and championed Chinese culture to millions in the West, and the local community’s significance in her career. Wikimedia Commons The marker will be located near the Bucks’ first Ithaca home—the parsonage of Forest Home Chapel, on Forest Home Drive—where the couple lived in 1924–25. “It was a brief but formative period for Pearl, because this is where she really delved into and was encouraged in her writing,” says city and regional planning professor Thomas Campanella, MLA ’91, who spearheaded the initiative. “I wanted to help restore her legacy.” Campanella, a Forest Home resident, has found himself crossing paths with the Bucks numerous times, starting when he discovered The Good Earth as a teenager. It was a brief but formative period for Pearl, because this is where she really delved into and was encouraged in her writing. He spent time at Nanjing University, where the Bucks taught for years, and visited the attic writing room (now a museum) where Pearl wrote The Good Earth. Stories You May Like MD Keeps Adventure Travelers Healthy on the High Seas For Generations of Alums, ‘Straight Cookies’ Were a Beloved Treat More recently, a grandson of Lossing’s through a later marriage—he and Pearl divorced in 1935—was a student of city and regional planning on the Hill. Pearl Sydenstricker was born in West Virginia but raised in China by Presbyterian missionaries with Mandarin as her first language, and developed a keen interest in the lives of the rural peasantry, Campanella says. One of many editions of Buck’s most famous work—this one, a graphic novel published in 2018. Married in 1917, Pearl and Lossing in 1920 had a daughter, Carol, who was severely disabled, and whom Pearl’s writing helped support. Professionally, the pair developed an “extraordinary partnership” in China, Campanella wrote in a 2018 book chapter. Lossing was invited to join Nanjing University as a professor and acting dean of an agriculture college modeled on what is now CALS. He produced the first and most extensive survey of Chinese agriculture—a project in which Campanella says Pearl played a vital role through her interviews with farmers, who trusted her personality and fluency. Without that experience, Pearl, in turn, might never have written The Good Earth. The book effectively was banned in China after 1949, and she was not allowed to return. Ironically, Campanella says, The Good Earth may be better known there today than in the U.S. In a 2001 New York Times article, Nanjing University Professor Liu Haiping called Buck “revolutionary … the first writer to choose rural China as her subject matter. None of the Chinese writers would have done so; intellectuals wrote about urban intellectuals. Many of us feel we should include Buck as part of Chinese literature.” Ironically, Campanella says, The Good Earth may be better known in China today than in the U.S. Buck, who died in 1973, went on to write many more books, including novels, non-fiction, translations, biographies, and books for children and young adults. She was working on The Good Earth trilogy’s second book when she and Lossing returned to Ithaca in 1932, then living on Wyckoff Road in Cayuga Heights. “I relish getting people to understand and value the history that’s all about them, and this is a very visceral and high-profile way of telling stories about individuals who have passed through a place before us,” Campanella says of the creation and installation of historic markers. “We move fast as a culture, and the past recedes quickly.” Top: Campanella with the marker prior to its installation. (Ryan Young / Cornell University) Published December 6, 2024 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni On a Glorious Fall Weekend, Cornellians Come Home Bear Hugs Mother-Daughter Alums Share a Vocation—Forging a Special Bond Cornelliana Big Red Hockey’s Annual MSG Tradition Keeps Sizzling