Editorial
Front Page - Friday, March 26, 2010
I Swear...
Hunting for Pettigrews
Vic Fleming
I got an email the other day from Todd Gross, one of my crossword friends from elsewhere in the USA.
Todd is doing research into the history of crossword puzzles. He has stumbled across an Arkansas connection that I was not aware of – one that predates the involvement of Arkansas Supreme Court Justice George Rose Smith (1911-1992) by 45 years or so.
Judge Smith had nine or 10 Sunday New York Times crosswords published in the ’70s, and ’80s. He was thought (by me anyway, and no one had ever contradicted this) to be Arkansas’s only other link to actual crossword authorship.
Of course, there was also Dorothy Lee Keith (1910-2007) of Pocahontas, who compiled and sold books of word lists that were used by puzzle makers from the ’40s to the ’60s. But she did not make puzzles herself.
“Since you’re a judge in Arkansas,” Todd wrote, “I’m hoping you might have heard of a Robert E. Johnson, who served as a U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas in the ’70s. It turns out he has an interesting connection to the early days of the crossword puzzle.”
Johnson was retiring from law practice about the time that I was starting. I never had the pleasure of meeting him personally.
Robert came into the world from a long line of politicians in Northwest Arkansas, being born in Greenwood in 1924. I’m pretty sure he was in the military during WWII and, like a lot of returning vets (my father-in-law included), got his law degree from the University of Arkansas in 1946.
Robert practiced law with his dad for a few years and, in 1954, became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. He was appointed U.S. attorney by Nixon in 1974. He retired in 1978. Thirty-four years as a federal prosecutor. That’s impressive!
He apparently moved to Dallas for retirement, as that is where Todd had traced him to. He died in 2005 and, thus, is unavailable to be consulted on the matter at hand.
His mother’s dad, granddad and great granddad all served in the Arkansas legislature. One of his great-great-grandfathers served as Franklin County Judge in the 1840s.
These things I learned from nosing around.
But, according to Todd, Johnson’s mother, Lucile Pettigrew Johnson, published several books of Bible-themed crossword puzzles in the 1940s. Todd was able to obtain a copy of “The New Testament in Cross-Word Puzzles” (1949).
“But it gets even more interesting,” Todd wrote. “Lucile’s mother, Helen Pettigrew, [had] puzzles published in New York City papers in the 1920s!”
Todd sent me two examples of crosswords with Helen Pettigrew’s byline, one entitled “Down in Arkansas,” with a copyright date of 1928.
Ironically, the puzzle has no theme and makes no mention of Arkansas, so the title is apparently an editorial reference to her home.
If anyone reading this column knows any living relatives of Helen Pettigrew, please send me an email to judgevic@comcaast.net.
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at judgevic@comcast.net.
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