To: Mr. Anthony Sacramone,
Managing Editor, First Things
156 Fifth Ave., Suite 400
New York, NY 10010
Dear Mr. Sacramone,
It has come to my attention that your publication is looking for young writers interested in religion and public life to pursue your First Things junior fellowships. While the initial impression is that you are looking for young people who write, perhaps the description could be expanded to encompass those who are young in the enterprise of writing.
Having spent the years from 1979 to the present exercising my feminine option to bear and raise children, I am essentially a literary Austin Powers (well, except that I would not say that women want me nor do men want to be me). I am interested in picking up where I left off at college commencement in May 1978.
Not that the the ensuing years have been totally fallow. The rigors of bearing, raising and educating a family have certainly educated me. Years passed with much reading but little writing beyond school excuses and tardy notes. With time I did manage to branch out into writing letters to the editor (usually of the ‘high dudgeon’ variety) of various august publications. Including First Things, which published one of my letters just last fall. Seeing my name on the same page as Fr. Neuhaus, Joseph Bottom, George Weigel, you and other fine minds, was a heady experience that I wouldn’t mind
repeating.
I understand that there are younger, more talented writers out there that you may well desire as Junior Fellows. Not to mention that a publication dedicated to “a religiously informed public philosophy for the ordering of society” might have qualms about aiding and abetting a mother with a devoted husband, one child of ‘tender years, a young man finishing 12th grade homeschool plus other devotees in what would be essentially running away to join the (Religion and Public Life) circus. But I do so appreciate the opportunity to contemplate “what if?”
Sincerely,
Ellyn von Huben
Ellyn S. von Huben
Lake Bluff,Illinois
Employment History:
2001 - present
Administrative Assistant in my local parish rectory
Responsibilities include basic clerical (that’s office clerical; not Church clerical) duties, phone contact with public; sacramental record keeping and assorted creative tasks as the need arises.
1979 - present
mother of six children
1978 -79
clerical temp work (steel mill, clothing factory, insurance office.)
Education:
1973 graduate, Cedarburg High School Cedarburg, Wisconsin (National Merit Commended Student, yearbook photographer, avid tennis player. No arrests. No detentions. No National Honor Society or Honor Roll)
1978 - B.A. in art history, Barat College, Lake Forest, Illinois (with a heavy emphasis on religious studies, including an exposure to the creme de la creme of 1970’s far-out spirituality)
1) from Mr. R. von Huben of Lake Bluff, Illinois.
Take my wife....please
2) from my current employer
Ellyn has been a priceless addition to our staff. Besides a gift for multi-tasking (e.g. - answering 6 phone lines, ordering office and church supplies, haranguing clergy to keep the wheels of parish life turning, desktop publishing, copier unjamming, cut-paper crafts and blogging on office time) she has a flair for the written word.
I am pleased to attach several copies of some of Ellyn’s best work. A Message from the Toilet exemplifies her witty and honest style, Please Don’t Close Soap Door when Running Dishwasher draws upon her vast experiences with technology and demonstrates her skill in putting the most obtuse concept in language that any lay person can understand, while Please Close Door Firmly Behind You (not to be confused with All Rectory Visitors Should Use Front Door - aka Ring Back Door Bell only if Absolutely Necessary - pure, nascent early Ellyn, written, at the beginning of her rectory career) is a masterpiece of concise communication and artful presentation in its original daringly bold type on a dissonant nonecclesial neon orange card stock.
We would miss her (especially when the hall clock needs to be wound on Monday and Friday or if our ancient plumbing should act up and require signage) but our loss could certainly be your gain.
3) from an anonymous retired Lutheran Pastor - Cedarburg, Wisconsin
Ellyn left us of her own volition. We had no clue that the Parish Council youth representative, Christmas pageant director cum summer bulletin editor would turn on us with such a vengeance. And, after that inflammatory letter of resignation that she wrote us back in 1975, I can vouch for her writing skills. (Thank God for the postal service and the fact that our church has glass doors...)
From what I hear, Ellyn has sloughed off the bad effects of her studies under Fr. Matthew Fox and Rosemary Radford-Ruether but made good on her childhood desire to become Catholic. More power to you all.
This is where it gets sticky.
Hmmm, writing of an academic nature. I wrote a bang-up senior paper in college. Got an A. It’s somewhere in my house. Unfortunately, I am not a grade A housekeeper.
To be honest, I haven’t needed to do much writing of an academic nature. Except for helping my children and their friends punch up their work, which proves that I can still hang in there with the college kids. Or that standards have deteriorated abysmally in the past 28 years. To be extra super-honest, I did have a recent moment of moral flexibility, in which I essentially wrote a paper for one of my children. Just this once. She has been a relatively low-need scholar and since I didn’t have to sit by her side through years of homework*, I allowed myself to slip one time. Just for fun. Just because I like to write.
(*Except for the ordeal of reading “Evangeline” back when she was a homeschooler. Less of a meeting of minds than a locking of horns.)
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