A Year of Losing… and Gaining
Image/Michael Green.
By Michael Green
The obituary stood out to me: Frederick Hesse Stitt, Jr. It noted that he was 62, well liked, and overcame addiction. I knew all that. I met him at the gym, and he gave me a greater gift than he realized.
That I would recognize a name in the obituary column probably is unsurprising. I write and teach about Las Vegas history, and I’m likely to know some names that others would miss. It’s also a terrible truth about this annus horribilis.
Pardon me for saying that the year has been worse than usual for many of us, and normal for many of us. All of us suffer losses. Before the virus, my father died, and soon after came the death of Eugene Moehring, whose name should be familiar to anyone who has read some Nevada history. The virus has taken other friends, notably Felicia Campbell, a UNLV pioneer who taught English there for 58 years. We also have confronted the loss of time, and touch, as friendships have sustained so many, but had to sustain us in a different way than usual.
We all have reacted differently to the changes that a virus has forced upon us. I like to think that I have handled the isolation better, if only because, as a child, I was a loner, with few friends, and an only child to boot. I expected my second childhood to come later in life (my wife might argue that this would technically be my third or fourth). My main companions were the adults in my life… and books.
Thomas Jefferson famously said, “I cannot live without books.” He also called them “a necessary of life.” I type this sitting in my home office surrounded by built-in bookcases, with a living room full of another set of shelves, and another batch in my office at school. My best guess is that I have about 5,000 books. I might be able to live without them, but I have no desire to find out. They strike me as a necessary of life.
There’s a too-little-known story, told by the late David Herbert Donald, the distinguished historian (between us, he and I have won two Pulitzer Prizes—he won both of them). When he taught at Harvard, he hosted a party at his home for a famous visitor, Gore Vidal, who asked Donald how many books he owned. Donald replied that he owned 12,000 of them (I already made clear that I am not in Donald’s league). Vidal asked if he had read them all. Donald responded, “No, but I know what’s in them.” At the end of the evening, Vidal announced that Donald knew what was in his books, so everyone at the party could leave with one of them. Whether Donald subjected his guests to a physical search, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I know a lot of what’s in my books, and I have read a good number of them, but not enough. I have pondered that lately as I read innumerable articles on the internet, and gut books for the information I need for whatever I might be writing at the moment.
I am not a book collector, in the sense that I don’t look for first editions. I look for the books I want or, more often, need. And therein lies the problem, and the part that Fred Stitt has played and should play in my life.
When Fred and I got to know each other a bit and he found out I tool around the roadways of Nevada history, he mentioned that he is named for his father, who was named for a family member. Did I know anything about him? Indeed I did, and do. Fred Hesse was an engineer—it says so on his tombstone in Woodlawn Cemetery in downtown Las Vegas. He also was mayor of Las Vegas for six years.
Hesse served from 1925 to 1931. That was during Prohibition. A couple of times, the authorities hauled in Fred Stitt’s namesake for trafficking in what was supposed to be illegal. Fred thought that was funny, as he did when I said that Oscar Goodman might be a bit depressed to know that he wasn’t the first mayor of Las Vegas known for an affinity for liquor.
One day, Fred said that he was downsizing and had something he thought I might like: A complete set of Great Books of the Western World, edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins. That was a lot to give, and he refused to accept anything in return, saying he was glad it was going to a good home. The 54 volumes fill two honored shelves in our living room.
Mostly, they sit. I already had read some of the authors in school. I have thumbed through some pages. Sometimes I look for a particular quotation. But I usually walk by them for one of my baseball books, or a Nero Wolfe mystery (and that series is great in its own right and way).
Within the books Fred gave me are many of the ideas that govern us politically, scientifically, economically, psychologically. They also just might offer some ways to cope with a pandemic, and the divisiveness that has characterized our politics and made coping with that pandemic all the more difficult.
Fred’s obituary reminded me that someone I do not pretend to have known well gave me a great, glorious gift. My gift in return should be to take those serious books more seriously, better spend my time, and read them. They are the wellspring of humanity and the humanities, and we need more of both, more than ever.
Double Down Blogger image credit: Casey Jade Photography.
Michael Green is an associate professor of history at UNLV. He is the author of several books about the Civil War era, including the forthcoming Lincoln and Native Americans, and numerous books about Nevada, including Nevada: A History of the Silver State, published in 2015. He is executive director of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association and executive director of Preserve Nevada, our state's oldest statewide historic preservation organization. He is president of the Nevada Center for Civic Engagement, which puts on the "We the People" high school civics events and other programs, and serves on the boards of The Mob Museum and the UNLV College of Liberal Arts. He writes "Nevada Yesterdays," funded by Nevada Humanities, for KNPR.
Thank you for visiting Double Down, the Nevada Humanities blog. Any views or opinions represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the blog author and do not represent those of Nevada Humanities, its staff, or any donor, partner, or affiliated organization, unless explicitly stated. All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. Omissions, errors, or mistakes are entirely unintentional. Nevada Humanities reserves the right to alter, update, or remove content on this blog at any time.