Page 5 of 5
Not One to Complain
He had good support from LSU. Was he comfortable in other senses? Did he ever mention the weather, for example?
MARIANNE STEINTRAGER: I don't remember him complaining about anything.
SCURRIA: No, he never did, he never complained. Of course, he always got his schedule arranged like he wanted to, his eleven o'clock class. It was like: whatever Voegelin wants, Voegelin gets. I think some people probably resented that on campus, because a lot of people didn't feel about Dr. Voegelin the way we did.
It's not really a matter of reputation, but of an internal awareness of his own abilities. With someone of his stature, it must have been a source of considerable resentment?
SCURRIA: It may have been across campus. I say across campus because we were on one side of the campus, and they were on the other. And maybe some of the others in the history or philosophy departments may have resented him. But within the department, they always felt it was complimentary to the department for LSU to be recognized through such a scholar.
Do you think there was any resentment?
STEINTRAGER: I never remember any resentment. And then we also had Dr. Heberle in sociology. His wife was Arnold Toynbee's daughter, so we had two of those fairly distinguished people. I think that people were just very pleased that LSU had them.
The English department was also quite prominent then.
STEINTRAGER: And we had T. Harry Williams in history, too. It was a good time to be at LSU, actually. We had a lot of famous people.
LUCILLE McDOWELL: I got this little student job–well, I didn't get it, jobs were foisted on me. I didn't mean to work, they would just happen. So, I was grading papers for the philosophy department, and I was in this English library, and that's where Cleanth Brooks was. He was my undergraduate adviser, and he really helped me schedule things. He was absolutely remarkable in the classroom. He drew people: we would study a poem and think there was nothing to it, and two days later you would know that that poem was the equivalent of any novel that had ever been written. They were his insights and he was leading you to them; it was fabulous.
Well, Dr. Brooks and T. Harry Williams and Eric Voegelin and a man named Robert Heilman–all of them were marvelous lecturers. They were friends. And Peter Carmichael, who was the head of the philosophy department, their offices were all on that floor. They would sometimes forget, I think, that I was there. I suppose I learned as much from the conversations as from the lectures!
And sometimes Dr. Voegelin would come over. Now, he wasn't in the gang because he wasn't on that floor, but he would sometimes come in. Of course, they would also tease one another, and he would enter into that too when he was there. He could give as good as he got. And he got and gave! I heard a lot of that, and it was marvelous: he was absolutely charming and a different person with that group of people. But then, being with Cleanth Brooks and T. Harry Williams would swing anybody. There would have to be something happening, because T. Harry Williams was kind of crazy.
One day, for example, T. Harry Williams was walking down the hallway. And he said, "Hey, Lucille!"–he used to call me Lucille, the Miss Klausen went long ago because he would tease me, he liked to tease everybody. And he was coming down the hall toward me, yelling all the way down the hall, "Hey, Lucille, guess what? I just learned there are three sexes on the campus." And I said, "Oh really, Dr. Williams?" "Yeah, three it is."
And he's coming closer the whole time, and I'm wondering what this is going to be. And he gets to me and says, "Guess what they are." "I don't know, Dr. Williams, what are they?" "Well, there's the male sex, and there's the female sex, and then there's the English major."
And he just falls all over himself. Everybody was looking because he was yelling and he had a booming voice: this little bitty man and this booming voice, and he was yelling this joke. And every time he used to tease me about being an English major and how ridiculous it was. He teased anybody about whatever it was that was their thing. He teased Eric Voegelin too, and Dr. Voegelin, I think, enjoyed it a great deal.
In fact, I think they were a kind of club, and Dr. Voegelin was admitted. He wasn't a prominent fixture because he wasn't there every day. But that little group met, and there was the wonderful quality of T. Harry Williams and of his mind and of his spirit. He was absolutely the life of the place. And Cleanth Brooks was simply a fabulous human being. And Dr. Heilman was a marvelous person, and Peter Carmichael was very interesting, and they enjoyed each other very much.
When Dr. Voegelin would come in, you could tell that he enjoyed it too. But what person of any intellect whatsoever wouldn't enjoy Cleanth Brooks? Or T. Harry Williams or Dr. Heilman? And Peter Carmichael: I think the other three sort of accepted Peter Carmichael on sufferance, but they didn't accept Eric Voegelin on sufferance. He was welcomed.
I felt that I was really privileged to be able to listen, to be able to hear a lot of the conversations, because they would have them in this huge room with a lot of books in it. Of course, there was a sign that said "Quiet," but they didn't care about that. It was their clubroom. 
This is part one of three parts. Part 2 will appear next week.
These recollections appear in Chapter 5 of Voegelin Recollected–Conversations on a Life, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri, 2008. This is published with permission and appears in two sections. We begin this week the first section which is presented in three parts.
Contributors
(Information given is as of publication of Voegelin Recollected in 2008)
james bolner sr. (interviewed May 6, 1996, in Baton Rouge) attended Voegelin's lectures as an undergraduate at Louisiana State University. Inspired to pursue graduate studies by Voegelin's example, he taught in LSU's department of political science until his retirement in 1999. He now resides in Baton Rouge.
paul caringella (interviewed May 23,1995, in Mountain View, California) became Voegelin's assistant in 1978 and provided Voegelin both scholarly and personal support until his death in 1985. Now a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, Caringella is director of the Eric Voegelin Archive there. He lives in San Francisco.
robert b. heilman (interviewed July 27,1995, in Seattle) was Voegelin's colleague and friend during his tenure at Louisiana State University. As a member of LSU's English department, Heilman not only sponsored Voegelin's naturalization as an American citizen but also frequently assisted Voegelin with his English. In 1948, Heilman accepted a position at the University of Washington, where he taught and wrote until his retirement in 1984. A prolific literary scholar, he remained active in his profession until his death in 2004.
lucille mcdowell (interviewed May 4,1996, in Baton Rouge) was one of Voegelin's first students at Louisiana State University. Formerly a producer for Louisiana Public Broadcasting and the coordinator of Louisiana's "Literacy and Learning" program, she is retired and lives in Baton Rouge.
robert pascal (interviewed May 6, 1996, in Baton Rouge) was Voegelin's colleague at Louisiana State University, where he taught Civil and Anglo-American Legal Science and Voegelin taught the Philosophy of Law to first-year students. Now an emeritus professor of law, Pascal lives in Baton Rouge.
jo scurria (interviewed May 4,1996, in Baton Rouge) was the administrative assistant at the department of government throughout Voegelin's time at Louisiana State University. One of the few expert interpreters of Voegelin's handwriting, she estimates that she typed more than five thousand pages of his manuscripts. Scurria is retired and lives in Baton Rouge.
lewis p. simpson (interviewed May 5,1996, in Baton Rouge) was a professor of English Literature when he met Voegelin at Louisiana State University. Also a Boyd professor, Simpson co-edited the Southern Review from 1964 to his retirement in 1987. He died in April 2005.
donald stanford (interviewed May 5, 1996, in Baton Rouge) was a colleague of Voegelin's who taught in the department of English at Louisiana State University. Both a literary scholar and a poet, Stanford co-edited the Southern Review from 1963 until his retirement in 1983. He died in August 1998.
marianne steintrager (interviewed May 4,1996, in Baton Rouge) studied under Voegelin as an undergraduate at Louisiana State University, then did graduate work under Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago. She lives in Baton Rouge.
lissy voegelin (interviewed May 28 and 29, 1995, in Palo Alto) was Eric Voegelin's wife from 1932 until his death in 1985. His lifelong companion, constant support, and frequent adviser, Lissy joined him in exile after the Anschluss and accompanied him in all relocations up to their final move to Palo Alto in 1969. Lissy Voegelin remained in Palo Alto until her death in 1996.
ernest J. walters (interviewed November 4, 1995, in Indianapolis) knew Voegelin as an undergraduate and M.A. student at Louisiana State University. After completing his doctorate under Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago, Walters joined the political science department at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. He taught there until his death in January 1997.
