In May 1979, Heiliger sent a form letter to several "Family and Friends of Aunt Meta," requesting information about her. "We need to receive from each of you a letter or a tape recording telling us as little or as much as you know. A sentence isn't too little and a long letter or 12 tapes isn't too much."[1] Heiliger wrote several more letters to Stenholm in 1979, going so far as to send her a few pages of a proposed film script. Finally, in September of that year, Stenholm wrote, "I wish I could be more encouraging about it, but I am afraid, judging from the material you have sent, that we could not use it for a film."[2]
At that point, Heiliger changed her plan. She wrote to Stenholm that she would, instead, write a book. She was still determined and had to be the best qualified person: "I find that I am the only one still living who really knew her (and that in her later years)."[3] Around the beginning of 1982, Eva Heiliger had completed her book manuscript. But it was rejected by three publishers.[4] She was encouraged by at least one editor to revise the book by turning it into something more like a historical novel: "The only route to go now is to add fiction to Aunt Meta's life story," she wrote to friends and family. But Heiliger made it clear she was unwilling to do it. The idea of adding fiction to her account, she said, "goes against my grain. . . . I am a factual writer."[5]
Notes
[1] Eva Heiliger to "Family and Friends of Aunt Meta," May 1, 1979, box 1, folder 1, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.
[2] Mrs. Katherine Stenholm to Mrs. Dick Heiliger, September 26, 1979, box 1, folder 4, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.
[3] Mrs. Dick Heiliger to Mrs. Katherine Stenholm, October 29, 1979, box 1, folder 4, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.
[4] Eva Heiliger to "Family and friends," April 4, 1984, box 1 folder 1, Meta Chestnutt Sager Collection.
[5] Ibid.
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