Maplewood Author Recounts Survivor Tales In "The Last Leaf"

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

Stuart Lutz has made it his business to meet many a 'last leaf' in his travels. And he has taken their stories and compiled them in his new book The Last Leaf, which was published this month by Prometheus Books.

The Last Leaf recounts the stories of people who are the last surviving witness to or participant in historically significant events.

They may be witnesses to history such as Frank Buckles, the last American World War I soldier, or Budd Schulberg, the last man to write with F. Scott Fitzgerald. They include survivors such as Cora Luchetti, one of the final people to remember the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, or Adella Wotherspoon, the final survivor of the 1904 General Slocum fire on the East River.

Some are the final witnesses to technological innovations: Arthur Burks was the last major designer of the ENIAC computer; Harry Mills the last man alive to work with Thomas Edison.

Or they may be athletes and entertainers such as Kitty Carlilse Hart, the last starring actress from a Marx Brothers Movie, or Paul Hopkins, the last pitcher who gave up a home run to Babe Ruth.

The term itself, Last Leaf, comes from a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes about aging (excerpted above). Lutz' book recounts 39 stories. Most subjects had passed away by the time the book was published, but Lutz estimates that nine are still alive.

Patch asked Lutz how he got started writing about 'last leaves.'

"I liked reading obituaries," he said. "One day in the 90s, I read an obit about the last Civil War widow—actually it turned out that that obit was incorrect, there were a bunch more—at least four other widows at that point. I read some other obits in the mid-90s, and noticed that other 'last persons' were passing away. One from the Johnstown flood had died. He was only three when that happened."

"The idea kind of percolated for a while and I began to write interviews around 1998. I started out relatively locally, interviewing Paul Hopkins, who was the last person to give up a homer to Babe Ruth. By this time, I'd been out of college for a couple of years and was starting my business [selling historical documents]. In 1998, I went with my girlfriend, now my wife, on a road trip to meet the last Confederate widow—who actually turned out to next to last one," said Lutz.

"I thought it would be cool to do a whole book or magazine series on survivors. I was hoping for an American Heritage magazine series, and it turned into more than that."

Lutz found his interview subjects by Googling and by contacting historical societies. Historical societies were especially good go-to sources because they not only highlighted historically important events, but also subjects from historical society leads were 'pre-approved' as having real and true stories. "I didn't really run into imposters," Lutz reported. "Going through historical societies, they had vetted people. There were photos available."

That's not to say that interview subjects didn't disagree with and diverge from academic historians or Hollywood versions of events. The last survivor from the Juneau (the Sullivan brother's ship), Frank Holmgren, has a story that is significantly different than what's conventionally accepted.

We asked Lutz about his favorite 'leaves.' He said, "There wasn't one interview that wasn't awesome and amazing."

"If you think about it, there were 4.5 million soldiers in the U.S Armed Forces during World War I. Frank Buckles' chances of being the last person alive? One in 4.5 million," Lutz enthused.

"The last ENIAC guy, Arthur Burks," he continued, "took me to the University of Michigan where 10% of that original computer was on exhibit. We went to a Comp Sci building and there were students sitting around, working on laptops. None of them had a clue that he was the granddaddy of them all."

"The last Union widow, Gertrude Grubb Janeway, was very interesting, too. She eschewed modernity in all forms. She never drove. Walked miles to church. She lived as if it were the 19th century. Her story per se may not have been that interesting but her lifestyle certainly was." 

Lutz has a sequel to The Last Leaf in the works, which will include some more modern stories. If you have an idea for a perfect subject, contact Lutz via email or in person at Words Bookstore at 7:30 p.m. on March 26 where he will be reading from and signing his book.  Or read what he has to say as a guest blogger at Judith Lindbergh's The Writers Circle Blog.

Author Stuart Lutz lives in Maplewood with his wife Sarah, one-year-old son Aidan and four cats (Rosie, Ludwig, Lola, Barkley). He owns a historic document business in Short Hills.