Alumni Remember Stafford
“I didn’t take a class from Bill, but he was always on campus and always had time for a chat. After I graduated, it must have been in the late 1970s, Bill spoke at a meeting of the Portland City Club. Someone asked him, ‘When did you start writing poetry?’ and he responded, ‘When did you stop? We all start writing poetry… some of us just stop before the others.’”Frank Dillow BS ’68, JD’77
“I’ve loved poetry since my grade school days. To actually have known a real poet—and such a good one and such a good human being as Bill Stafford—continues to influence my life. I reread his poetry with some regularity. I think of him always as part of what makes the heartbeat of Lewis & Clark.”Don Floren BS ’53
“In the 1960s, we were living in Las Vegas. Bill and Mrs. Stafford came to town for a national conference, and he called me. He wanted to learn about the ‘normal’ Las Vegas, away from the casinos and show stages. They came to our home for dinner, and it was a delightful evening. I don’t know whether he wrote anything about our people, but his visit is a valuable memory.”John Howe BA ’56 and Elizabeth Drury Howe BA ’56
“I came to Lewis & Clark in 1948 and was in William Stafford’s English 101 class. We sat alphabetically back then, and I met my wife, Donna Macklin [BA ’52] in his class. Later on, Bill and Dorothy moved across the street from us in Lake Oswego. We always asked Bill, ‘What is the meaning of that poem?’ And he would say, ‘What is the meaning to you?’”Frank LawrenceBS ’52
“My freshman year, I went to see a retrospective about William Stafford’s work in Council Chamber. It was his poetry with images of a river in the background. His voice was narrating. I was so moved that I went home to my dorm room in Forest and wrote a letter and poem to him explaining that I knew that, at that moment, I wanted to be a writer. He wrote back a very lovely note and put it in my campus mailbox. I really do thank William Stafford for my chosen path. We named our firstborn child, our son William, after him. That is what William Stafford has meant to me.”Elizabeth Fowler Ross BA ’93
