Larry Groce to present ‘Louise and Me,’ a celebration of Pocahontas County-native and WV Poet Laureate Louise McNeill, on Sunday

By Matthew Young, RealWV

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – “As it says in the title, it’s a love letter to West Virginia.”

That’s how Larry Groce described his upcoming production of “Louise and Me: A Love Letter to Louise McNeill and West Virginia,” while speaking with RealWV on Monday. The program will feature readings of Louise McNeill’s work, as well as musical interludes performed by Groce.

“Louise helped me fall in love with West Virginia, which I have done,” Groce said. “I came for nine months, and have stayed for 53 years. I have strong feelings for this state, and part of it was because of Louise and her work.”

Poet Louise McNeill was born on January 9, 1911, on her family’s farm in the small community of Buckeye, in Pocahontas County. Both the farm, and the McNeill family’s ownership of it, date back before the American Revolution. The daughter of writer G.D McNeill, Louise was just 16-years-old when she decided to pursue poetry, and eventually graduated from Concord University, which was still Concord College at the time. 

Louise would go on to earn a Doctorate in History from West Virginia University, and received an Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities some years later. Louise would have the opportunity to study poetry with Robert Frost at Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In 1939, Louise married her late husband, Roger Pease. 

In addition to selling her poetry to the famed “Saturday Evening Post,” Louise made a career for herself as an English and History teacher, beginning in small, rural classrooms, before teaching students at Potomac State and Fairmont State Colleges, and West Virginia University. In 1979, Louise was named West Virginia’s Poet Laureate by Gov. Jay Rockefeller. Louise held the title until her passing, on June 16, 1993.

“I discovered Louise McNeill within a few months of moving to West Virginia,” Groce, who first arrived in the Mountain State in 1972, said. “I think it (her work) had influenced me deeply. I didn’t realize how much until I had put together this program.”

“But I was an admirer of Louise immediately,” Groce continued. “I saw some of her poems in a magazine right after I got here (West Virginia), and arranged to meet with her and her husband where they lived in Morgantown, just because I was so impressed by her talent.”

“After that time, I met with her on several other occasions,” Groce added. “I went to her home, and she came to my home. I actually stayed with her and her husband once in Lewisburg for several days when I was doing a program there.”

In 1991, Groce explained, he produced an audio presentation of Louise’s book, a historical collection of poems titled “Gauley Mountain,” for West Virginia Public Broadcasting. It was a two-hour program that included all of the poems in the book. 

As Groce explains, of the poems featured in the program, “You could say ‘recited,’ but basically they were acted.”

“I had narrators, and character voices, and sound effects,” Groce further explained. “Some of them I put to music. It went on West Virginia Public Broadcasting and some other places. It won an award back then for Public Broadcasting, for Radio Production.”

“Then later, in 1997, a fellow named Gibbs Kinderman, who put all the small, public radio stations down in Pocahontas County, and other places down there in Virginia and West Virginia, he picked up the rights to put it out as a CD.”

Included with the CD, Groce noted, were copies of, now back in print, “Gauley Mountain,” which had fallen out of print prior to the CD’s release. 

“Louise worked with me, and approved everything that I did with the radio version, and her voice was heard in it also,” Groce added. “She encouraged me to put music to the poems.”

His recent return to Louise’s work, Groce said, stemmed from a conversation with a longtime friend and collaborator.

“My old friend, Andy Ridenour, who started Mountain Stage with myself and Francis Fisher many years ago, lives out in a retirement-community in Shepherdstown,” Groce explained. “He does programs for them, and he asked me if I had anything to say about Louise McNeill, because some of his people there seemed to be interested in her.”

“I decided I would try to put something together, and that’s how this came together only a few weeks ago,” Groce continued. “But I worked on it for a long time. I’ve got quite a few hours to make something that’s about an hour and 20 minutes long.”

The majority of the runtime for the program Groce has created features cuts of Louise’s poems from the radio presentation. 

“People who come to the show, they will hear these poems that were in that production back then,” Groce said, noting that the poems are presented in order of their setting, from the 1750s through the 1930s. “Interspersed in between them, there’s a little commentary by me. And every now and then I sing one of my songs.”

Groce noted that the songs he will be performing were not specifically written to be played with Louise’s poetry. However, Groce says they “seem to fit.”

“It seems to me that they’re somehow kind of related to Louise’s work by influence,” Groce added.

In addition to Groce’s commentary and musical performances, the program features the voice-work of Louise McNeill, Pinckney Benedict, David Morris, Irene McKinney, Sandy Fisher, Katherine Cole, Rebecca Kimmons, Michael Frasher, and John Whitty. The fiddle and banjo-playing of John Blisard, and the piano-playing of Bob Thompson will also be featured.

“Louise and Me: A Love Letter to Louise McNeill and West Virginia,” will begin at 3 p.m. Sunday, at The West Virginia Museum of Music. The museum is located on the second floor of the Charleston Town Center, directly across from the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. The event is free to attend, with a suggested donation of $10 to the Music Hall of Fame.