Ben Hur Lampman

Ben Hur Lampman
File:Ben hur lampman 1922.jpg
Born	(1886-08-12)August 12, 1886
Died
Occupation	journalist, essayist, poet
Nationality	American

Ben Hur Lampman (August 12, 1886 – January 24, 1954) was a U.S. newspaper editor, essayist, short story writer, and poet. He was a longtime editor at The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, and he served as Poet Laureate of Oregon from 1951 until his death.

Career

Lampman's first job as a writer was with the local newspaper of Gold Hill, Oregon. In 1916, he moved to Portland to become a reporter for The Oregonian. In 1920 he published an account of the 1919 Centralia Massacre. In 1921 he was appointed an editor of the editorial page. He also wrote nature essays in The Oregonian.

His stories and essays also appeared in national magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post. Some of his essays about life in Portland were collected in his 1942 book At the End of the Car Line. In 1943 he won an O. Henry Award for his short story "Blinker Was a Good Dog" which originally appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Some of his papers and manuscripts are now in the collection of the library of the University of Oregon. Others reside at Lewis and Clark College and the Oregon Historical Society. The Lewis and Clark Collection also contains, on loan, from the family of Ben's long-time friend, Elizabeth Salway Ryan, Ben's typewriter, his trademark glasses, a complete set of proofs of all 14 of his books and many more items.

Lampman also wrote a column in the Oregonian entitled "Where to Bury A Dog" which is frequently cited in pet memorials. It was included in How Could I Be Forgetting, a 1926 compilation of the author's essays and poems.

In the 1980s. Elizabeth Salway Ryan wrote a biography, The Magic of Ben Hur Lampman. The typescript was published in a very limited edition by Grandson Mark Anders Kronquist and Daughter Sally Ryan Tomlinson. Copies of the first edition typescript are in the collections of the University of Oregon, The Lake Oswego Public Library, the Library of Congress and the Oregon Historical Society. In 2011, as a part of the celebration, Lewis and Clark College printed several hundred copies of the typescript.

Personal life

Lampman was born in Barron, Wisconsin and raised in a small town in Neche, North Dakota where his father, H. H. Lampman, was editor of the local newspaper. As a boy, he worked in his father's print shop. He left home at age 15 and worked in the wheat country of Canada. He returned to North Dakota. At the age of 19, he married Lena Sheldon (his same age), a New York City resident who had moved to the Dakotas to become a school teacher. During his time in North Dakota, he was editor of the Nelson County Arena newspaper located in Michigan, North Dakota. As of the 1930 U.S. Census, he and his wife had one son and two daughters: Hubert Lampman, Caroline S. Lampman, and Hope H. Lampman.

Lampman died in Portland on January 24, 1954. He is buried in Lincoln Memorial Park in Portland.