Louie E. Galloway grew up in Many, a small town still dear to her heart in the piney woods of Louisiana. Betty Weber (as she was known then) spent most of her time swinging on vines across creeks. When she was twelve, her family moved to New Orleans. She wound up at Isidore Newman School, founded in 1903 as a manual training school for Jewish immigrant children with the motto Discimus Agere Agendo – we learn to do by doing. Over time a strong academic curriculum developed and it became a respected prep school. With her classmates, she learned to think by thinking.

She received a B.A. and M.A. in English literature from Vanderbilt University, and married John Galloway, a medical student from Colombia, South America. His family owned a farm in the Andes, and when they visited, they rode horseback in the mountains and checked the pastures for lost cattle. They moved to New Haven, Connecticut for his training, and her three daughters were born there.

During the tumultuous years of the 60’s, the marriage fell apart, and she started teaching part time at the Torrington Branch of the University of Connecticut. One day a notice appeared on the otherwise bare bulletin board announcing a National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar in poetry at Boston University taught by Professor Helen Vendler. Elizabeth (as she now called herself; friends and family have always called her Louie) had started writing poetry during these years, as many women were doing, to help her survive. Here was a chance to study with a poetry critic and scholar. She applied for the grant, received it and moved with her daughters to Boston. She continued with her studies and received an interdisciplinary Ph.D. from B.U. in English (poetry) and Anthropology (oral literatures and symbolic systems). After many part time teaching jobs, she signed on full time with Massachusetts College of Art and taught poetry (and, of course, writing and literature) to visual artists. What a trip! She retired professor emerita from this school that she deeply respected and loved.

Louie then lived Lawrence, Kansas to help care for her grandchildren. Always an active feminist and politically engaged, Louie was a member of the Lawrence Friends community as well as local writing and book groups. Louie was also an enthusiastic volunteer at the Lawrence Public Library. Recently Louie moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she enjoyed the verdant rolling hills and playing the piano at the Martha Jefferson House. Louie passed away at the age of 85, her vibrant opinionated sprit is missed.

Louie’s daughters blossomed and went on to find their paths: Laura, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Virginia; Ellen, a psychologist working for the Veterans Administration in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Julia, a potter and Professor of Art at the University of Montana. She has four grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Some of these poems have appeared in Poiesis, Coal City Review, Trivia, Kalliope, Hanging Loose, New England Studies Association Newsletter, Phantasm and in Imagination and Place: An Anthology.

Special thanks to David Eberly, Shirley Weber, Nancy Meneely, Elizabeth Mckim, Julia Galloway and the Jamaica Pond Poets.