Helen Winter Stauffer

Born 1922-01-04 Mitchell, SD (USA)

Died 2019-11-21
Lincoln, NE

Buried

Burial at Fort McPherson National Cemetery

Stauffer's biography of Mari Sandoz is the most thorough scholarly biography we have. She was able to interview the widest circle of people who knew Sandoz, including, just among the most notable, Virginia Faulkner, Eleanor Hinman, Ron Hull, John Neihardt, Caroline Sandoz Pifer, and Rudolf Umland. Mari Sandoz was the theme for Stauffer's doctoral dissertation. Stauffer performed Chautaqua-style performances of Sandoz (and of Libby Custer) for the Nebraska Humanities Council and willed her Sandoz research and her personal correspondence to UNL. She also wrote on other women writers of the American West.

Places Lived

Grand Island, NE
Kearney, NE
30 towns in South Dakota (before the age of 5)
Kansas City, MO
San Francisco, CA
Denver, CO
Lincoln, NE

Author Of

Nonfiction
Biography

Keywords

History; Sandoz scholarship; Western America

Education

Grand Island, NE High School, 1939
Associate of Arts, Colorado Women's College, Denver, CO 1941
Bachelor of Arts, Kearney State College, Kearney, NE 1964
Master of Arts, Kearney State College, Kearney, NE 1968
Ph.D, University of Nebraska, Lincoln 1974

Occupation

Professor Emerita of English, University of Nebraska at Kearney

Places Worked

Bell Telephone Company
Donnelly Garment Company
WAVES
Grand Island, NE High School
Giltner, NE Schools
University of Nebraska, Kearney

Honors

John H. Ames Reading Series, Featured Reader, 17 February 1994
Alumni Roll of Honor, Grand Island High School
Kearney State College Deans Award for Scholarship
Pratt-Hines Award for Scholarship
Mari Sandoz Award from Nebraska Library Association
Outstanding Alumnus, University of Nebraska Kearney
Outstanding member award, Western Literature Association
Martin Chair in English, University of Nebraska Kearney

Associations

WAVES (Women's Navy)
Great Plains Chautauqua

Bibliography

Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains. 1982.
Women and Western American Literature. 1982. (with Susan J. Rosowski)
Welded Women. 1983. (edited poems of Nancy Westerfield)
Letters of Mari Sandoz. 1992. (editor)
Sandoz, Neihardt and Crazy Horse. 1993. (monograph)

Ames Reading Series, February 1994:

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