MPR’s Tom Stewart explores Sauk Centre as it celebrates Sinclair Lewis Days, in honor of the hometown author’s contributions to American literature and his Nobel Prize for Literature.
Stewart talks with residents, who have vastly different views on Lewis…most of whom have not read his books. Though Lewis’s novel "Main Street" left many bitter feelings amongst locals, Mayor Robersham feels the town has modernized since then and hopes pride in the local author will encourage younger generations to stay in Sauk Centre.
This recording was made available through a grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
Transcripts
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[MUSIC PLAYING] SPEAKER: And they have Mercury Princess.
TOM STEWART: Those are the sounds of Sauk Center's annual Sinclair Lewis days, held in honor of, if not its most popular, certainly the town's most famous native. As a Sauk Center resident, Lewis was an introvert, preferring long walks and reading to socializing. He left the city for Oberlin College in 1902. And though he occasionally returned, he never made it to his home again. Lewis was America's first winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. But he first received recognition for Main Street, an exposé of small town attitudes published in 1920.
Citizens of Sauk Center were outraged at the time, and some never forgave him. But all was forgotten as the town enjoyed the three-day festival. In fact, it seemed as if most people had forgotten about Lewis altogether. Mayor Bernard Robersham, born and raised in Sauk Center, said that's because the town has changed since Lewis's time.
BERNARD ROBERSHAM: It's been so many years ago that it happened that kids nowadays, they just don't associate that type of literature anymore with what's going on today. So although it's good reading, at least they'll find out what it was like 40, 50 years ago.
TOM STEWART: So you don't think the town's like that anymore?
BERNARD ROBERSHAM: Oh, no. Definitely not. I think it's a progressive town, just like any normal city would be. And we're all trying to do the same thing, keeping the young people here and trying to get them something to keep them here. Whether we can accomplish that is a question. I don't know whether Sinclair Lewis's book or the reading of it would ever keep them here. But-- actually, of course, there really isn't anything in these smaller towns in the way of training that would really keep them here. There's no real large business that would keep anyone here. Some of the area, of course, would be perhaps for girls if they have some hospital training. We have a nice hospital and now a brand new nursing home, of course, for employment for them. For boys, well, there just isn't that much unless they have some type of a skill.
TOM STEWART: What do most of the young people do around here for entertainment or for social life?
BERNARD ROBERSHAM: The bulk of them, and quite a few of your younger, perhaps, and I shouldn't say that too generally, younger married couples, are great golfing fans. We have a good golf course, and a lot of them keep themselves occupied that way. And well, of course, in the fall and during the winter, there is a great sports town. It's a good one. We have good basketball teams, good football teams. And they enjoy sports, and of course, a great deal of fishing. We're right on the edge of the lake, of course. They do a lot of fishing, hunting.
TOM STEWART: Sauk Center mayor Bernard Robersham. He said few people in Sauk Center have read Lewis's books, though most have an idea of who he was. Most of Lewis's generation is gone now. Ben du Bois is one of the remaining townsmen who grew up with Lewis. Du Bois is 88 and still spry enough to be at the first State Bank at 7:30 each morning, where he's chairman of the board. He remembers Lewis when he was six and later lived next door to his father, EJ Lewis.
BEN DU BOIS: I always liked him. He was a peculiar type and naturally of interest for that reason, I presume. But he didn't fit in, of course. He was, I suppose, what you'd call an oddball. And he had a high imagination. Kids are quite actual and they want facts. So he had a-- rather a hazardous time growing up. He had a father that didn't understand him.
But I don't know anybody that could understand him. And Lewis capitalized on the human frailty, the faults of the human. And of course, he had a wide field in which to indulge in that, looking for the things that were not desirable. But he had eyes that could see. I ran across not long ago an account of where he predicted the Depression a year before the break-up in Wall Street in '29, over a year before that, even before Babson.
And he had a gift of looking ahead. And of course, he had the ability to write. He was a great writer. There was no stability in him at all. He might have been an atheist in one day of the week. He was a devout Christian probably in another, an agnostic along the line, and this and that in between. But peculiarly, he had no friends in town except Irving Fisher, and he was funny. It's a makeup that was strictly his own.
TOM STEWART: Have you read many of his books?
SPEAKER: Oh, no, I really haven't. Although I know everyone know them all around here.
TOM STEWART: What do most people think?
SPEAKER: I think they all think quite a bit of him.
TOM STEWART: Do you hear much about him anymore?
SPEAKER: Well, every once in a while, you hear it. Yeah, I hear it. I get around quite a bit, and you always hear it.
TOM STEWART: Do you read many of his books, or have most people read them?
SPEAKER: I've never read any of his books at all.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: I've heard so much about him, it's pitiful.
TOM STEWART: You're tired of hearing about him.
SPEAKER: Tired of hearing him because he's a dirty, goddamn humbug.
TOM STEWART: OK. Have you read his book? Would you tell me?
SPEAKER: Have I read a book? No, I haven't read his book. But I've heard all about it and seen all about it.
SPEAKER: Don't go and get another antique car. Another one steaming. It's hot for them out here today at Wolf Skogmo and gamble with the antique car.
TOM STEWART: Any feeling for how folks think of him these days?
SPEAKER: Well, I know he was famous, as Main Street book. I suppose he was a great person here.
SPEAKER: I haven't read it. But there's even a movie on it. I think of different ones. There's Martin Arrowsmith and there's several others I know of that they made movies.
SPEAKER: Because Sinclair Lewis lived in Sauk Center and wrote the book Main Street, in which they are capitalizing on this.
TOM STEWART: That's the first person who said it that way. Have you read many-- Have you read Main Street?
SPEAKER: No. Frankly, I never have. I haven't been in the town that long. I've been here about 10 years.
TOM STEWART: Have you-- Have you read Main Street?
SPEAKER: I have started, but I never finished it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: The town has to have something Main Street from the book, someone to name it after.
TOM STEWART: They've even named an avenue after him now, haven't they? It used to be Third Street?
SPEAKER: I think so, yeah.
TOM STEWART: Have you read Main Street?
SPEAKER: Yes.
TOM STEWART: Are you required to read it in high school?
SPEAKER: Yeah, when you're juniors.
TOM STEWART: What do you think that book talks about?
SPEAKER: I think the small town and the hardships of it, just what you go through for somebody who just moves into it.
TOM STEWART: Have you been just moved into it?
SPEAKER: No, I've been here about seven years.
TOM STEWART: Are a lot of the young people moving out or not?
SPEAKER: Some of them. There's a lot of them still in town working. I don't know. I lived in a big town for a while. But this is-- you know everybody better and your friends are a lot closer.
SPEAKER: During Christmas.
TOM STEWART: Last year's parade followed Sinclair Lewis Avenue past Lewis's staid boyhood home, now a national historic landmark. This year, the procession promenaded down the original Main Street and past the town library, which houses the Sinclair Lewis museum. Construction is currently underway for an interpretive center, which will house Lewis's memoirs and mementos. The center will face Interstate 94. The city hopes the center will attract enough tourists to put Main Street on the map again. This is Tom Stewart.
SPEAKER: Chamber of Commerce. Saint Paul's All-American city.