Degrees of Truth: The Story of Mari Sandoz’ Admission to the University of Nebraska

Newspaper photo, Mari Sandoz honorary degree

In a photograph that appeared in the Omaha World-Herald, R.G. Gustavson, Arthur Bessey Smith, Ewalt T. Grether, and Mari Sandoz stand in commencement regalia after receiving honorary degrees. Used with permission from the Omaha World-Herald. [5]

Teachers College facade<br />
<br />

Teachers College as it appeared to Mari Sandoz during her time at the University of Nebraska. Used with permission from Archives & Special Collections. [41]

Mari Sandoz and kiosk

Mari Sandoz on campus next to the weather kiosk south of University Hall, 1926. Photograph from "Hims of the Past" scrapbook. Used with permission from Mari Sandoz Heritage Society. [42]

Jamison Wyatt, History 250: The Historian Craft

On June 5, 1950, Mari Sandoz walked across the stage of the Nebraska Coliseum during the annual commencement ceremony of the University of Nebraska. Before a crowd of well over 2,000, she shook Chancellor Rueben Gustavson’s hand and proudly accepted an honorary Doctorate of Literature. [1] The degree stated, “Mari Susette Sandoz, distinguished Nebraska historian, biographer, novelist, story writer.” [2] For the 54-year-old Sandoz, the honor not only assuaged her academic insecurities—she had neither high school diploma nor formal college degree—but it validated twenty years of extensive research and publication on Nebraska and the Great Plains. [3] Sandoz’ university friend, Professor Orin Stepanek, concurred. In a letter to Sandoz before the ceremony, Stepanek wrote that “mere academic decency demanded the award; for . . . you did far more ‘research’ quantitatively and qualitatively on either Old Jules or Crazy Horse than any school demands for the doctorate . . . .” [4] After the ceremony, Sandoz exited the Coliseum to the “Land of Plenty” march and proudly posed in full academic regalia for an Omaha World-Herald photographer. [5] Shortly thereafter, Sandoz walked south toward the Nebraska Union for a formal luncheon hosted by the chancellor, and along the way, Sandoz passed the Teachers College. [6] At this building in 1922, the story of Sandoz’ admission to the University of Nebraska took place. This became a story that Sandoz frequently told, and with each telling, she shrouded it with drama and fiction like a scene from one of her novels.

On August 30, 1919, the District Court of Sheridan County, Nebraska, granted a twenty-three-year-old Sandoz a divorce from her husband, Wray Macumber. [7] The details of the five-year marriage and its dissolution are open to much speculation. Sandoz rarely discussed it. What is known with certainty, however, is that immediately after the divorce Sandoz left her native Sheridan County and moved to Lincoln as Marie Macumber. (Marie and Mari are merely variants.) Like the eponymous character in Booth Tarkington’s 1921 novel Alice Adams, Sandoz sought an escape from a failed romance by seeking one of the new post-war opportunities that existed for young women: business college. On October 31, 1919, Sandoz enrolled at the Lincoln Business College as Mrs. Marie Macumber. [8] But a few months later, Sandoz appeared in the 1920 Lincoln City Directory as a business college student, with the same married honorific, boarding at “457 N 25th.”[9] Two lines down from her entry, the directory listed Sandoz’ ex-husband at the same address. Did Wray Macumber follow Sandoz to Lincoln? It is possible. On the other hand, Sandoz may have been insecure about her divorce. The city directory created its entries through oral surveys much like the census-taking process. Perhaps Sandoz clumsily navigated social waters by telling a directory surveyor that she lived with her husband. This was the last known record of Sandoz as Mrs. Macumber. Going forward, Sandoz styled herself as Miss Macumber. No one was any the wiser, at least in Lincoln.

Sandoz attended the business college for the next eighteen months, and she took courses in composition, shorthand, and spelling. After graduation, Sandoz moved to Osceola, Nebraska, and worked as a stenographer. The stint was short lived. According to her sister, “Mari soon found that office work was not much of a challenge for a creative person . . . .”[10] Perhaps Sandoz realized the life of a secretary was a mere existence in obscurity. As Tarkington’s Alice Adams imagined, “[secretaries were] pretty girls turning into withered creatures as they worked at typing-machines; old maids ‘taking dictation’ from men with double chins . . . .”[11] Instead of a life of office drudgery, Sandoz decided to return to her former career as a teacher.

In the summer of 1913, Sandoz passed the state teachers’ examination and received a “Third Grade” County Certificate. At the time, Nebraska law allowed counties to issue teaching certificates ranging from the least advanced, Third Grade, to the most advanced, First Grade.[12] Sandoz’ certificate authorized her to teach at schools in Sheridan County, where she began teaching the following autumn. In 1915, Sandoz upgraded her teaching certificate to the Second Grade and continued to teach in the county until the time of her divorce.[13] Three years later, when Sandoz quit the office drudgery, her teaching certificate had expired. Consequently, she retook and passed the Second Grade examination and immediately moved to central Cheyenne County, Nebraska, to teach the eighteen pupils of School District No. 8.[14] It was around this time, according to Sandoz’ sister, that Sandoz “laid plans for her six book series of trans-Missouri history.”[15] Sandoz herself made similar claims, but there is no extant evidence to suggest she was actually writing or had any intentions of becoming a writer. Her principal concern was still teaching. [16]

When Sandoz began teaching, Nebraska law allowed teachers to renew their certificates every two years by retaking the First or Second Grade examinations. Accordingly, Sandoz renewed her certificate during the early part of her teaching career. The years which followed, however, brought several changes to the statutes on teacher certification. A 1919 law maintained the certificate renewal process but, in addition, the law created a significant new requirement. Teachers now had to take a minimum of six college hours.[17] So in May 1922, Sandoz decided to attend the University of Nebraska to fulfill this requirement.

Earlier that spring, the university published its summer session bulletin and listed education courses that were designed to “aid in preparing a body of properly qualified teachers to meet the needs of the state.” The bulletin also advertised that individuals could easily secure six to twelve hours of coursework during the summer session. [18] Even individuals like Sandoz—individuals who did not have high school credit—could seek admission at the university if they were at least twenty-one years old. Such students were called “Adult Specials.” The Teachers College drew especial attention to prospective Adult Specials and stated that “practically all teachers of four years’ experience will be able to do the professional and semi-professional work of the Summer Session, whether they have completed a high school or not.” [19] All that was needed was approval from the college dean. Thus, the twenty-six-year-old Sandoz, with well over four years teaching experience, had a practical plan to seek admission.  

When Sandoz returned to Lincoln, she moved into an apartment at the Baldwin Terrace, 1136 K Street. [20] The Baldwin Terrace was but two blocks west from Capitol Square, where the State of Nebraska was excavating the foundation for a new skyscraper statehouse. Sandoz loved the plans for the new capitol, and perhaps she walked by the square the day she sought official admittance at the university. From there she could simply turn north and walk the eight blocks to Teachers College, which was the newest building on the campus, dedicated just two years before.[21] The Federal-styled, brick building housed both the Teachers College (an independent professional college that had recently separated from the College of Arts and Sciences), and the university’s laboratory high school (commonly called Temple High because it had recently operated inside the basement of the Temple building). Once inside the college, Sandoz climbed the central slate stairs to the third floor and walked to office 314 in the northwest corner—the office of Dean William E. Sealock.[22] After what was certainly a routine visit, Dean Sealock admitted Sandoz to the Teachers College as an Adult Special and sent her to the registrar’s office where she paid her fees. The official date of her matriculation—exactly twenty-eight years before she received her honorary doctorate—was June 5, 1922.[23]

Sandoz officially registered with a slightly altered name: “Marie Alice Susetta Macumber.” First, she changed the spelling of her given middle name. Susette became Susetta. Second, and most curious of all, she invented a new middle name: Alice.[24] The origin of this name likely came from the popular literature of the day. After all, Sandoz loved to read, and she stayed current with the latest histories, periodicals, and novels—novels like Tarkington’s Alice Adams, which won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1922. Sandoz read Tarkington.[25] Imagine Sandoz reading Alice Adams right before enrolling at the university and identifying with the protagonist.  As previously noted, there were parallels between Alice Adams and Sandoz. Both were twenty-something women who suffered romantic loss but through their own self-determinations, they were able to forge their paths separate from family and men. They were both modern, bachelor women who could shape their futures and rewrite their pasts. Enter the drama and the fiction.

Each time Sandoz recounted this period, specifically her admission story, she embellished it in ever-greater exaggeration. One of the earliest iterations of the story occurred after Sandoz won the Atlantic Monthly Press nonfiction contest for the biography of her father, Old Jules. On June 17, 1935, Omaha World-Herald reporter Volta Torrey telephoned Sandoz to discuss her $5,000 prize.[26] Sandoz provided Torrey the information he needed for a profile piece, which he published later that evening and included a mention of her university admission: “She never attended high school, but camped on the doorstep of Dean W.E. Sealock until he admitted her to the University of Nebraska . . . .”[27] It was brief, but the line introduced subtle melodrama. Sandoz surely did not camp on the dean’s doorstep. As the university had clear policies for admission of nontraditional students, it is preposterous to think that its officials would have turned away an ambitious individual ready to pay tuition. If Sandoz “camped” at all, it was likely to stand in line to see Dean Sealock. Enrollment of the 1922 summer session was at a record high, and lines were surely lengthy.[28] Further, Dean Sealock, as Director of the Summer Session, was a busy man during the session’s registration period.

A few years after the Torrey interview, Sandoz embellished the admission story even further. In a 1939 letter she wrote:

By the time I was twenty-one and qualified by age at least as an adult special I had a pretty good teachers’ certificate but decided that I must have a college education. I came to Lincoln, sat around in the anterooms of various deans for two weeks between conferences with advisors who insisted that I must go to high school. Finally bushy-haired Dean Sealock got tired of me and said, "Well, you can’t do any more than fail—" and registered me. [29]

Here, not only did Sandoz exaggerate her admission waiting period, but she introduced an outright fiction. She conveniently made herself twenty-one—the minimum age requirement for Adult Specials. That Sandoz made herself five years younger may speak to an insecurity she felt about her maturation. After all, she could have enrolled at the university when she first moved to Lincoln in 1919, but she did not. Instead she trained to be a secretary. Admittedly, Sandoz later recognized that she and her family members were, intellectually, “a slow-maturing people.” In 1932, she wrote to a younger sister:

Has anything struck the significant spark that shows you your aesthetic “home?” Perhaps it’s a little early yet. Those sparks usually come later among a slow-maturing people as we seem to be, slow maturing in intellect, I mean. It’ll probably hit you between twenty-five and thirty, so your great moment is still before you. [30]

Giving such sisterly advice, Sandoz was surely speaking from her own experience. Arguably, Sandoz did not find her own “aesthetic home” until she was twenty-seven.

Based on the courses she took during her first two summer sessions at the university, it is likely that Sandoz planned to not only renew her teaching certificate but also upgrade it to the First Grade. To do so, Sandoz had to pass four more subjects in addition to the fifteen already on the Second Grade examination. Those subjects included algebra, botany, geometry, and public school music. Not coincidentally, Sandoz’ first university class was “Education M: Methods of Public School Music.” (The class took place in the Library—present day Architecture Hall.)[31] Sandoz also took a class in botany in 1922.[32] The following summer, after she taught another school year in western Nebraska, Sandoz continued to take courses that would prepare her for the First Grade examination, including physics. But later that summer, and perhaps as a mere backup plan, Sandoz renewed only her Second Grade certificate. When the 1923–24 school year began, Sandoz decided not to teach but to continue her studies as a university student.

This first regular session was when Sandoz’ maturation really began. She took her first two English composition courses, and she wrote “Prairie Fire,” her earliest-known adult work.[33]  The English Department was certainly impressed, and it published the story on April 18, 1924, in the inaugural issue of Freshman Scrapbook.[34] Years later, Sandoz wrote an autobiographical novel, The Ungirt Runner (unpublished), and she captured the moment that Endor (a thinly veiled Sandoz) received her first writing recognition:

The university campus lay tucked into the eiderdown of a November fog the morning Endor hurried to a conference with her English instructor. Miss Black . . . only one year removed from studenthood and not yet afraid to play God with young destinies, had just suggested that Endor, if she studied and worked hard, might write. She might write, not only well, she did that now, but unusually well. Her papers had been discussed with the department head; there could be no doubt about it. She had talent.[35]

Seeing “Prairie Fire” in print seems to have been her intellectual spark. From that point forward, Sandoz made writing and humanities courses her academic priorities. Further, she began writing short stories in her free time, and she began to archive her correspondence. Still, it was not until 1930 that she publicly declared herself a writer in the Lincoln City Directory.[36] Prior to that year Sandoz listed herself variously as a stenographer, student, and teacher.

Eleven years after she accepted the honorary doctorate, Sandoz returned to the campus for a television interview with the University of Nebraska’s KUON-TV. Inside the studios at the Temple building, interviewer Rita Shaw asked, “Didn’t you, when you were about twenty-one, decide you had to go to the university?”[37] Sandoz’ answer became her most vivid account of the admission story yet. She maintained that she was indeed twenty-one but added that she wanted to go to the university “all the time.” Sandoz also placed great stress on the idea that “everyone” discouraged her from going to the university and insisted that she instead attend Temple High. “Well, I’d been teaching school for five years, and I had no intention of going to Temple High and sitting with a bunch of high school children.” The fascinating twist is that after her university admission, she simultaneously attended Temple High. The botany course she took in 1922 was in fact a high school course.[38] “Marie Macumber” was even listed in the roster section of the Spring 1923 high school bulletin.[39] In the Shaw interview, Sandoz also introduced a villain to the admission story: a “hard-boiled secretary.” This secretary “wouldn’t let me at [Dean Sealock]. And I sat there and sat there, you see, and he would come by and say, ‘Is this young woman waiting to see me?’ And the secretary would say, ‘No, she’s waiting for a friend.’” Sandoz concluded the story in her typical fashion, but she added one last emphatic declaration: “I never asked for the degree, so there.” The declaration, of course, was another fiction. In 1934, Sandoz wrote to the university registrar’s office and asked, “What are the steps I must take to obtain a degree from the University of Nebraska, in addition to making up the college credits that I lack?"[40] There is no extant response from the registrar.

Back on that June day in 1950, Sandoz stood before the old Teachers College. Always the keen historian, Sandoz surely recalled the first day she walked into the building—a day exciting enough but not nearly as dramatic and fantastic as she claimed publicly. She had told this story for the better part of a quarter century, and perhaps her memories changed and her truths transformed. Still, the admission story was hers to tell and despite the drama and the fiction—invented or remembered—Sandoz could finally finish her university story she had begun twenty-eight years before. She smiled at the Teachers College and walked away holding the degree she had so long desired.

Endnotes:
  1. “Cousins Tell N.U. Class Dynamic Leaders Needed,” Lincoln Evening Journal, 5 June 1950, 1.
  2. Seventy-Ninth Annual Commencement (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1950), University, General Records, Commencement, 1939–1950 (RG 00-05-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  3. Helen Winter Stauffer, Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 181.
  4. Orin Stepanek to Mari Sandoz, 30 April 1950, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 17), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  5. Seventy-Ninth Annual Commencement; Photographic print, Omaha World-Herald, 6 June 1950, Home edition, 12.
  6. Mari Sandoz to J.P. Colbert, 24 May 1950, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 17), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries; “Commencement Schedule at N.U.,” Nebraska State Journal, 5 June 1950, 1.
  7. Sheridan County, Nebraska, divorce decree, 30 August 1919, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 12, Box 74, Folder 7), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  8. Lincoln Business College transcript, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  9. Lincoln City Directory 1920, (Lincoln, NE: Lincoln City Directory Co., 1920), 393.
  10. Caroline Sandoz Pifer, Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I (Gordon, NE: Mari Sandoz Corporation, 1972), 22.
  11. Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921), 140.
  12. The Revised Statutes of the State of Nebraska, 1913, (Lincoln, NE: State of Nebraska, 1914), 1912–14.
  13. Nebraska Teachers’ County Certificate in the Third Grade, 1913, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College; County Second Grade Teachers’ Certificate of Nebraska, 19 August 1915, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  14. County Second Grade Teachers’ Certificate of Nebraska, 29 August 1921, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College; Souvenir At Close of School, May 1922, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  15. Caroline Sandoz Pifer, Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I, 22.
  16. Helen Winter Stauffer, "Mari Sandoz and the University of Nebraska," Prairie Schooner 55, No. ½ (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981), 253–62. 
  17. Laws, Resolutions and Memorials: Passed by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska at the Thirty-Seventh Session (Lincoln, NE: State of Nebraska, 1919), 1020–21.
  18. Bulletin of the University of Nebraska,XXVII, No. 8 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska,1922), 19, Catalogs and Bulletins, 1871–present (RG 00-07-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  19. Bulletin of the University of Nebraska, 21.
  20. According to the Lincoln City Directory, Sandoz, listed under Macumber, lived at 1133 K Street. No such address existed; however, Sandoz likely lived with her cousin, Rosalie Sandoz, who lived at 1136 K Street—the Baldwin Terrace. Lincoln City Directory 1922 (Lincoln, NE: Lincoln City Directory Co., 1922), 294, 383.
  21. “Teachers College Building Will Be Dedicated Today,” The Daily Nebraskan, 16 January 1920, 1.
  22. Program Second Semester, 1921–1922 (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1922), 2, University, General Records, Class Schedule 1882–1943 (RG 00-08-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  23. University of Nebraska transcript, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  24. Pifer, Caroline Sandoz, Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I, 22.
  25. Mari Sandoz to Carlton Wells, 29 August 1938, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 8), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  26. Mari Sandoz to Volta Torrey, 8 April 1965, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 38), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries. The Atlantic Monthly Press notified Sandoz about the prize via telegram on June 13, 1935. The telegram stated: “KEEP THIS NEWS STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL UNTIL JUNE SEVENTEENTH WHEN ANNOUNCEMENT RELEASED TO NEWSPAPERS . . . .” Paul Hoffman to Sandoz, 13 April 1935, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 5), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  27. Volta Torrey, “Lincoln Woman’s Book Awarded $5,000 Atlantic Monthly Prize,” Omaha World-Herald, 17 June 1935, Home edition, 1.
  28. “Summer Enrollment Is Now Near 2000,” The Summer [Daily] Nebraskan, 10 June 1922, 1.
  29. Mari Sandoz to Richard Thruelsen, 16 January 1939, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 9), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  30. Sandoz to Caroline “Peggie” Sandoz, 5 December 1932, from Caroline Sandoz Pifer, Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book III (Gordon, NE: Mari Sandoz Corporation, 1984), 147.
  31. Bulletin of the University of Nebraska, 39.
  32. Teachers College High School credit card, 1922, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  33. University of Nebraska transcript.
  34. “Publish Writings of Underclassmen,” The Daily Nebraskan, 18 April 1924, 1.
  35. Marie Macumber, Ungirt Runner, c. 1929, from Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I, 41–2.
  36. Polk’s Lincoln City Directory 1930 (Kansas City, MO: R.L. Polk & Co., 1930), 317.
  37. Mari Sandoz, interview by Rita Shaw, Past, Present and Future, University of Nebraska Television, KUON-TV, 1961.
  38. Teachers College High School credit card.
  39. Bulletin of the University of Nebraska Teachers College High School, XXVIII, No. 16(Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1923), 29, Teachers College High School Catalogs and Bulletins (RG 23-35-01), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  40. Mari Sandoz to University of Nebraska Registrar, c. 1934, Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 4), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  41. Teachers College, photographic print, c. 1930, Building and Grounds Files (520200-1831), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  42. "Hims of the Past," scrapbook, c. 1926, Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection (1997.001.10426), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.

Bibliography:

  • Bulletin of the University of Nebraska.XXVII, No. 8. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1922. Catalogs and Bulletins, 1871–present (RG 00-07-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Bulletin of the University of Nebraska Teachers College High School. XXVIII, No. 16.Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1923. Teachers College High School Catalogs and Bulletins (RG 23-35-01), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  •  “Commencement Schedule at N.U.” Nebraska State Journal. 5 June 1950.
  • County Second Grade Teachers’ Certificate of Nebraska. 19 August 1915. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • County Second Grade Teachers’ Certificate of Nebraska. 29 August 1921. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • “Cousins Tell N.U. Class Dynamic Leaders Needed.” Lincoln Evening Journal. 5 June 1950.
  • Laws, Resolutions and Memorials: Passed by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska at the Thirty-Seventh Session. Lincoln, NE: State of Nebraska, 1919.
  • Lincoln Business College transcript. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • Lincoln City Directory 1920. Lincoln, NE: Lincoln City Directory Co., 1920.
  • Lincoln City Directory 1922. Lincoln, NE: Lincoln City Directory Co., 1922.
  • "Hims of the Past." Scrapbook, c. 1926. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection (1997.001.10426), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • Hoffman, Paul, to Mari Sandoz. 13 April 1935. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 5), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Macumber, Marie. Ungirt Runner. (Unpublished). Excerpts from Caroline Sandoz Pifer. Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I. Gordon, NE: Mari Sandoz Corporation, 1972.
  • Nebraska Teachers’ County Certificate in the Third Grade. 1913. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College
  • Photographic print. Omaha World-Herald. 6 June 1950. Home edition.
  • Pifer, Caroline Sandoz. Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book I. Gordon, NE: Mari Sandoz Corporation, 1972.
  • Polk’s Lincoln City Directory 1930. Kansas City, MO: R.L. Polk & Co., 1930.
  • Program Second Semester, 19211922. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1922. University, General Records, Class Schedule 1882–1943 (RG 00-08-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • “Publish Writings of Underclassmen.” The Daily Nebraskan. 18 April 1924.
  • The Revised Statutes of the State of Nebraska, 1913. Lincoln, NE: State of Nebraska, 1914.
  • Sandoz to Caroline “Peggie” Sandoz. 5 December 1932. From Caroline Sandoz Pifer. Making of an Author: From the Mementoes of Mari Sandoz, Book III. Gordon, NE: Mari Sandoz Corporation, 1984.
  • Sandoz, Mari. Interview by Rita Shaw. Past, Present and Future. University of Nebraska Television, KUON-TV, 1961.
  • Sandoz, Mari, to Carlton Wells. 29 August 1938. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 8), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Sandoz, Mari, to J.P. Colbert. 24 May 1950. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 17), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Sandoz, Mari, to Richard Thruelsen. 16 January 1939. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 9), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Sandoz, Mari, to University of Nebraska Registrar, c. 1934. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 4), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Sandoz, Mari, to Volta Torrey. 8 April 1965. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 38), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • Sheridan County, Nebraska. Divorce decree. 30 August 1919. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 12, Box 74, Folder 7), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • Seventy-Ninth Annual Commencement. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 1950. University, General Records, Commencement, 1939–1950 (RG 00-05-00), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • “Souvenir At Close of School.” May 1922. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • Stauffer, Helen Winter. "Mari Sandoz and the University of Nebraska." Prairie Schooner 55, No. ½. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1981. 
  • Stauffer, Helen Winter. Mari Sandoz: Story Catcher of the Plains. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
  • Stepanek, Orin, to Sandoz. 30 April 1950. Mari Sandoz Collection (MS 080, Reel 17), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • “Summer Enrollment Is Now Near 2000.” The Summer [Daily] Nebraskan. 10 June 1922.
  • Tarkington, Booth. Alice Adams. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1921.
  • Teachers College. Photographic print, c. 1930. Building and Grounds Files (RG 52-02-1831), Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries.
  • “Teachers College Building Will Be Dedicated Today.” The Daily Nebraskan. 16 January 1920.
  • Teachers College High School credit card. 1922. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.
  • Torrey, Volta. “Lincoln Woman’s Book Awarded $5,000 Atlantic Monthly Prize.” Omaha World-Herald. 17 June 1935, Home edition.
  • University of Nebraska transcript. Caroline Sandoz Pifer Collection of Mari Sandoz Papers (Series 5, Box 75, Folder 1, Restricted), Mari Sandoz Heritage Society, Chadron State College.

 

 

Degrees of Truth: The Story of Mari Sandoz’ Admission to the University of Nebraska