DELAWARE SOURCE BOOK -- SNODGRASS FAMILY STATEWIDE CENSUS RECORDS 1790 census index - NS 1800 census index - NS 1810 census index - NS 1820 census index - NS 1830 census index - NS 1840 census index - NS 1850 census index - NS 1860 census index - NS 1870 census - yes (see New Castle Co.) VITAL RECORDS Delaware Marriage Records (Delaware Archives, Dover) yes (see below & New Castle Co.) **************************************** RECORDS (no dates) -- David A. Snodgrass married Mary G. Delaplain (no location given). ########################################## NEW CASTLE COUNTY CENSUS RECORDS 1870 census - yes ********************************************* RECORDS 12 Jan 1811 -- Mary Snodgrass married Rev. Samuel Bellgrove. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1870 Census Christiana Hundred, page 497, #98/99: James Delaplane 73-M-DE retired, $10,000/6,000 Mary Delaplane 70-F-DE keeping house Elizabeth Delaplane 35-F-DE at home Barbary Ward 25-F-IRE domestic servant Mary D. Snodgrass 8-F-VA at home Christiana Hundred, page 501, #163/166: David Snodgrass 40-M-VA farmer, $0/800 Mary J. Snodgrass 42-F-DE keeping house David Snodgrass 13-M-VA Rebecca Snodgrass 11-M(sic)-VA Delaplain Snodgrass 8-M-VA Mary Snodgrass 6-F-VA Sarah Snodgrass 4-F-VA William Snodgrass 2-M-VA Margaret Beck 40-F-PA domestic servant [1850 & 1860 Ohio Co VA/WV, s/o John & Rebecca] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25 Apr 1882 -- Mary D. Snodgrass married J. Stephenson Pugh. ---------------------------------- Feb 1988 -- DELAWARE TODAY, page 148: NEWARK'S BEARDED BARD: This frustrated musician became an eminent poet. By Bruce Johnson. Were Newark's W. D. Snodgrass to etch his name and title on his office door, there wouldn't be room for a doorknob. His official University of Delaware title is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing and Contemporary Poetry, a more- than-a-mouthful handle that fits the package. This 61-year-old poet, born in Wilkinsburg, Pa., lives in Newark's George Read Village near Newark High School. A tenured professor of creative writing with the university's English department, Snodgrass, who is married and has two children, still finds plenty of time to write, often in the company of his 150-pound English mastiff, Buford. For four decades he has been writing poetry and critical essays that have won the acclaim of critics. His output of poetry includes collections like After Experience, The Fuehrer Bunker, and his most recently published work, Selected Poems, released last year. His talent has been recognized through numerous awards, the most prestigious of which was the Pulitzer in 1960, awarded for his book of poems entitled Heart's Needle. Snodgrass also has garnered the Hudson Review Fellowship in Poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Ford Foundation grant for study in theater. Before arriving at UD in 1979, this man of letters had wound his way around the world, with teaching stops at Syracuse and Cornell universities. There were occasional detours, usually when he was rebounding from career-choice cul-de-sacs. "I was a musician before I was a writer," says Snodgrass, flashing a c haracteristic grin through a billowing gray beard. "I started out on piano and violin, but I was real bad at those. I did become a good timpanist, and if there had been any openings with symphony orchestras ... that's what I would have done." There weren't, fortunately, and Snodgrass turned elsewhere for his artistic expression. But before Snodgrass gave up on music as a profession, he tried his hand at conducting. He was learning to conduct when he was drafted into the Navy during World War II. After the war, Snodgrass enrolled at the University of Iowa to become a playwright--at which he claims he did a lousy job. "It was just something to do," he says. "If I wasn't going to be involved in music, I wanted to be in the arts somewhere." The high point of his time at Iowa was his discovery of creative writing. "They had some wonderful teachers in the creative writing workshops. I sort of drifted into it. After a couple of years I felt that this was something that I could do." The Pulitzer Prize proved that Snodgrass "can do," and he does it with an eclectic slant. This musically minded poet has never forsaken his first choice of careers. He is dabbling with his first love when he translates folk music and 12th and 13th century ballads from numerous languages to English. He knows only English, so he relies on the help of friends and prose ponies for his translations. A prose pony, says Snodgrass, is a book which gives both the original and translated versions of a work. Snodgrass still takes music seriously, but not painfully so. "A friend of mine says that 'music is such a great vice, why turn it into a virtue?'" he says. Smiling, he strums one of his six individually-crafted guitars and adds, "That way it stays fun and doesn't become work. That's what it is to me." The fountain that currently nourishes Snodgrass's poetic bent has a strange wellspring. An artist friend of his, De Loss McGrath, has created a surrealistic likeness of W. D. Snodgrass--one that appears in many of McGrath's works. McGrath paintings that include "W.D." images are owned by collectors the world over, including the queen of Denmark. "McGrath started doing paintings based on works of mine," says Snodgrass. "Then he started doing these narrative paintings that have this figure W.D. in them. Then I started doing poems based on his paintings. They are really kooky, wild, delicious paintings. I've found myself being more productive than I've ever been. Though others are, Snodgrass is not convinced that he's good at what he does. "You never know. The only way to know is if your stuff is still around 300 years later. By then I'm not going to be around. Still, I won't be around to find out if I was bad, either." ##################### end DE #######################