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By MARCIA TAYLOR

Special to The Citizen-News

"An Afternoon With Robert Loveman cosponsored by Dalton Regional Library and Lesche Woman's Club, is planned for Sunday in the First Baptist Church Family Life Center at 2 p.m.

The event will feature a recently published biography "It's Raining Violets...The Life and Poetry of Robert Loveman" by Dr. William Stanley Hoole, dean emeritus of the University of Alabama Libraries. Also included on the program are readings from Loveman's poetry by Miss Dot McCrory.

Claiming Dalton as his home, "Bob" Loveman submitted his poetry to the Birmingham Age-Herald and the Atlanta Constitution in the fall of 1888, while he was still enrolled in the University of Alabama Law Department. Collections were published in the years that followed-including "Poems," "A Book of Verses," "The Gates of Silence With Interludes of Song," "The Blushful South and Hippocrene," and "On the Way to Willodale.

His lyrics were "full of pure, pleasant thoughts told in musical rhyme." One critic and distinguished novelist, Israel Zangwill, described the Dalton poet's verses as "marked by delicacy of expression, restraint of handling, and tenderness of thought..." With the publication of "April Rain" by Harper's Magazine in 1901, Loveman received national recognition almost immediately.

Letters and requests for autographed copies poured into the editorial offices of the literary magazine. Even H. L. Mencken, editor of "Smart Set," wrote to Loveman: "I envy you the day you wrote 'April Rain,' and every other man with music in him must envy you, too." As time went on, favorable reviews also appeared in the San Francisco Argonaut, the Seattle Times, the Chicago Evening Post and in the London Court Circular. The granddaughter of his sister, Linka, writing for the Georgia Review, said: in his own quiet way Uncle Bob had fought all his life for the right to be himself in a post-war age that, like our own, generally judged a man by the money he made."

Time and fate, we often find, are interwoven - for as "Uncle Bob" write graceful, melodious lyrics, several doors down Thornton Street, Gertrude Manly Jones (Mrs. T. R. Jones) was becoming a leader in literary, musical, and cultural affairs in Dalton. In fact, she organized "The Lesche" on Sept. 19, 1890-the same study club, dedicated to literacy and cultural pursuits, that this week will co-sponsor "An Afternoon With Robert Loveman."

Her home was a mecca for young people. She had studied harp, piano, languages and  many of the graduates of Dalton Female College, right across the street, gathered at  her home to continue their cultural endeavors. This group of young ladies formed what is now "the oldest organized woman's club in Georgia." A volume of her poems, "Aunt Charity's 'Ligious 'Speriences" (1896) followed by "Topsy Takes de Cake" and "Ole Mammy's

Lullaby Songs." At the time of her death, she had almost completed an operetta titled "Cohutta." Col. and Mrs. Jones had three children Walter, Thomas, and Charles Gordon. Family members still reside in Dalton.

Meanwhile Will Harben, also a Daltonian, at about the same time, maintained a store in Dalton and with his friend Bob Loveman would walk the Appalachian hillsides, no doubt discussing their literary aspirations. One of Harben's ancestors was a brother of Daniel Boone. In the dry goods business till he was 30, Harben sometimes in Georgia, sometimes in Tennessee- always in arrears." In 1888 he moved to New York where his literary career actually flourished. Beginning with the publication of "White Marie: A Story of Georgia Plantation Life," dealing with social problems of slavery, he later published detective and adventure stories. His most popular  novels, however, were written after William Dean Howells advised him: "Stick to the soil to your Georgia, and the home people you know." In 1900 his "Northern Georgia Sketches," "dedicated to Joel Chandler Harris whose kindly this encouragement made book possible," initiated a distinguished literary career. "Westerfeld" (1901) began his series of stories of the Georgia hill country. His family, too, remains in Dalton.

Through the years, Daltonians have joined in the northwest Georgia parade of writers, editors, composers, and other literary figures: A. J. Showalter, whose hymn "Leaning On the Everlasting Arms," is included in modern day hymnals; Marian Sims, author of the 1940 J.B. Lippincott novel, "A City on the Hill," as well as "Memo. To Timothy Sheldon," "Call It Freedom," and "The World With a Fence"; Walter Scott Bogle, not only an editorial-page columnist for The Daily Citizen-News and contributor to Georgia Magazine, Georgia Quarterly Review, and Dug Gap Review, but also wrote the 1973 book "Look Unto the Hills''; Geda Bradley Mathews, whose "Original Skits" has been admired for many years; Mrs. Ora Lewis Bradley, who in the 1940s published "Country Doctor's Wife" and "A Rose By Any Other Name"; Theron S. Shope, a friend of Robert Loveman, president and manager of the A. J.Showalter Co. and editor of The Dalton Citizen, whose family still resides in Dalton; and Mrs. Mary B. Robertson Longley, whose novel "The Pilgrim Voyage 37," published in 1965, was based on a true account of a 1937 sea journey. In addition, she has contributed widely to southern magazines and local publications.

William Martin Sapp, one of Dalton's most distinguished citizens, also brought literary recognition to his town. "Georgia Land and Other Poems", published by A. J. Showalter in the 1940's, reveals deep devotion to this corner of the state. Poems such as "Catoosa Springs,' "Where Holly Creek Meanders," "Oneonta," "Conasauga" and "On the Road to Ellijay" are among the local sites that " inspired his poetic soul and stirred to action his poetic pen. Two outstanding ministers have, likewise, brought credit to Dalton: Dr. Reynolds W. Greene Jr., senior minister of the First United Methodist Church, published "Listen: God Is Speaking," "Between An Atom and a Star" and the Advocate Press book "Crucial Questions With Christian Answers"; and, secondly, Bishop William R. Cannon, of the same denomination, who published "The Theory of John Wesley," "A Faith for These Times" (University of Georgia Press), and "The Christian Church" (1945).

More recently, Conway Gregory, a native of Murray County, published, while living in Dalton, "Sumach On the Hill," an historical account of Sumach Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and the University of Alabama Press in 1973 published "Joseph E. Brown and the Politics of Reconstruction" by Derrell C. Roberts, president of Dalton Junior College.

Indeed, in the past century this community, nestled in the foothills of north Georgia, has made sizable contributions to the literary world.

Dalton, Georgia is home to many notable authors and writers. Use the tabs to view some of the authors from the Dalton area. See someone not listed that should be? Let us know by contacting us at askalibrarian@daltonstate.edu