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6 October 2002

Yesterday I went to Chattanooga for the day with my friend Rod Bennett (editor of WONDER magazine and author of Four Witnesses) and his wife and children. We spent several hours at the Chattanooga Public Library reading The Chattanooga News and The Chattanooga Times for about November 1930 - February 1931. We were looking for articles about G. K. Chesterton's second American speaking tour, during which he and his wife Frances stayed in Chattooga for awhile.

We found no prior announcements of his coming to Chattanooga. The earliest reference I saw was on page 14 of The Chattanooga News for 20 November, an Associated Press bit about G. K. C.'s appearance and speech in Buffalo, New York. After that the next reference to Chesterton was after his arrival:

22 January 1931 - p. 12. "Mrs. G. K. Chesterton ill in local hotel"
23 January 1931 - p. 11. She was reported "very much better". Gilbert was planning to go on to speaking engagements in Nashville, St. Louis, and Memphis, and Frances would rejoin him at Memphis.
23 January 1931, in The Chattanooga Times - similar to those in the News, with brief comments from Chesterton. I don't think Rod noted the page number; at least, it did not get into my notes.
4 February 1931 - A long interview article in The Chattanooga News (pages 1 and 12), with a photograph of G. K. on the front page.
6 February 1931, page 8. Another brief article about Mrs. Chesterton's illness and recovery.

Based on the passage in Joseph Pearce's biography Wisdom and Innocence, Rod had thought that Chesterton had made a stop to speak in Chattanooga shortly after 6 January. The long article on 4 February made it clear that the Chestertons had not planned a stop in Chattanooga; Frances got sick on the train and they stopped then, first in a hotel and then in Erlanger Hospital. It is not clear how many of the next several speaking engagements G. K. made before returning to Chattanooga to be with Frances, but we're pretty sure he at least spoke in Nashville.

By the time we left the library I had a crick in my neck from sitting in a backless chair and looking slightly up at a microfilm reader's screen. We rejoined Dorothy and the children (who had gone to the Civil War battlefield at Point Park while we did our research) and went to see Rock City before returning home to Austell & Lilburn.

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