Katherine Eleanor SALTZMAN was born October 19, 1904, at Mount Ayr, Iowa. She attended high school there, then Drake University where she received her B.A. degree in 1928. She received a Master of Arts degree in 1929 from the University of Iowa. She stayed on at the University of Iowa, first as editorial assistant of the Classical Journal, then as assistant in public relations for the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station.

Crippled at the age of nine by infantile paralysis, she spent much time in the SALTZMAN Hotel in Benton Harbor, Michigan, which was operated by her cousin Dr. William SALTZMAN. She died there in 1946 at the age of 41.

Saltzman was a compulsive writer, as she discusses in one of the essays in this collection, "I'm an Incurable." She wrote advice on parenting, beginning with her days with the Child Welfare Program. She wrote novels, two of which were published -- Ever Tomorrow in 1936 and Stuart's Hill in 1946. These were well-received and won modest praise as regional novels, written in a form called "softened realism." "Grave" and "honest" are words used by several critics to describe SALTZMAN's work. A third novel, Carpthorne, was in production, but because of the war and SALTZMAN's early death, it was never published. She wrote many short stories and poems, and a good many of them were published in such journals as The Saturday Review, The Household Magazine, and Wallace's Farmer.

Eleanor's mother, Mrs. Noah SALTZMAN, donated her papers and manuscripts to the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries in Iowa City in 1947. Additional materials were donated to the collection in 2004 by Katie W. GREEN.

The SALTZMAN Hotel, operating on the belief that mineral water (often smelling like rotten eggs) possessed restorative powers for the human body, promoted their mineral baths, "Forty years experience curing Rheumatism, Nervousness, Arthritis, Poor Circulation, etc." in 1945.

In the mid-1890's a fire swept through Benton Harbor High School. Classes were moved to the Saltzman Hotel, with the chemistry lab set up in the kitchen. Classes were moved into a new school located on Colfax Avenue in 1921.

SOURCES:
www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/MSC/ToMsC700/MsC689/MsC689_saltzmaneleanor.htm#biohist
THOMOPOULOS, Elaine Cotsirlos, Ph.D. St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, Michigan p. 111. Arcadia Pub. Chicago. 2003
"Brief History of Benton Harbor High School" at www.bhhs71.reunionwatch.com/

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, March of 2009