Toni Morrison's Lorain

The article depicts the day when Toni Morrison visited her hometown to meet with her family, friends, and fans in 1982. This article suggests her popularity and impact on people in Lorain. Wedny Langenderfer published it on January 16m 1982, in the Lorain Journal.

LORAIN — Two Toni Morrison fan clubs and a long, cold rain, Chamber of Commerce gala and the guest of honor at DeLuca’s Place in the Park.

One is the 50-year international literary celebrity, the signer of autographs, the New York sophisticate.

The other was Chloe, the girl who grew up in Lorain, the glowing woman for whom the event was a family event-- a chance to see, hug, and love those people who are important in her life.

“This is sort of like a wedding,” she explained with a laugh, simultaneously signing autographs, granting an interview and nodding and smiling to friends and acquaintances. “There’s chaos, good feelings and disorder.”

Mrs. Morrison said she keeps in touch with her family by telephone every week. All the relatives get together at least twice each year.

Dressed in a rose colored blouse, her graying hair looking distinguished against her dark skin, Mrs. Morrison spoke briefly of her memories of Lorain before a crowd of nearly 500 people.

She said a woman is currently doing a thesis on her work and wanted to visit Lorain to see what influenced the author.

“My memories are pre-1950. They took on tones of color, shades, sounds that exist only in a writer’s memory. If she went to the house at 2245 Elyria Ave., and looked at where I was born, it couldn’t haunt her memory as it does mine. The porch wouldn’t seem so wide and she wouldn’t know anything about that old dog Bob that everybody said wouldn’t bite.”

“When you leave your home, you take with you the parts that are nourishing and leave the parts that aren’t,” she added.

At one time, 15–20 years ago, Mrs. Morrison said she thought Lorain was all gone for her because everywhere she saw severe deterioration. A friend to hers, a pilot, said he knew about Lorain because pilots used the “big cloud” hanging over the city as an unofficial marker.

Another friend, she said, described Lorain as the “meanest town in Ohio.”

“Then I started to fight back. I told them every (streetcar) track in this town (Washington, D.C. then) was made in Lorain, Ohio. I even took them out and showed them,” she added with a chuckle.

“I am very proud that the lake looks better than I remember. I’m very very proud of the lighthouse Lorain has. Now Lorain has lived up to my recollections of it.”

“This is an extremely moving moment. I can feel the warmth and affection coming from this group,” she said, smiling at the crowd. “It renders someone whose whole adult life has revolved around words--speechless.

Morrison said many people have asked how she was persuaded to come back to Lorain, especially now, when she is faced with beginning production of her first play. She finished it just yesterday.  

“My mother said it would mean a lot to her. That was pretty good blackmail,” she grinned. “If you can’t take time out to come home, the work your doing is not of much value.”  

Mrs. Morrison said she was sorry her late father couldn’t see her being honored.

“I only regret he is not here at this table. On the other hand, maybe he is,” she said softly.

A large group of Mrs. Morrison’s relatives, some from as far away as Maryland, proudly watched the Lorain native being honored.

“This is marvelous,” Carlene Brown, a cousin of Mrs. Morrison’s from Dennison, noted. I wouldn’t want to miss it--such a tribute to her. This means so much because no one is sad. The last time we all got together because there was a death in the family. This is something to be proud of.”