Biographical Statement

Adapted from: Beloit College News Service (July, 1959) and other sources

Chad Walsh was born May 10, 1914 in South Boston, Virginia and was raised in Marion, Virginia. Before attending college he worked as a part time reporter and linotypist for Sherwood Anderson's weekly newspapers. In 1936 he graduated from Marion Junior College and then attended the University of Virginia where he received his A.B. degree in 1938 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He helped to establish Virginia Verse, a student poetry magazine, while at the University.

Walsh received a fellowship to the University of Michigan where in 1939 he earned a master's degree in French. In the same year, he won the Hopwood Award in the drama division at the University. He stayed to take a Ph.D. in English in 1943 and after receiving his doctorate, Walsh served as a research analyst in the War Department. In 1945 he joined the faculty of Beloit College as a professor of English and was chairman of the department for many years. He retired in 1977 and afterwards devoted the majority of his time to writing. Walsh died in 1991 at the age of 76.

At the University of Michigan, Walsh met and married Eva Tuttle, a graduate of Middlebury College. They had four daughters: Damaris, Madeline, Sarah-Lindsay, and Alison.

During his early life, Walsh was an agnostic, but recovered his faith in his later youth. In1949 he was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church and became an associate rector at St. Paul's Church in Beloit while continuing his teaching duties at the college.

One of the founders of the Beloit Poetry Journal, a national literary quarterly, Walsh was a frequent contributor to national magazines. He held the title of poet-in-residence while teaching at Beloit and reviewed books for the New York Times and The New York Herald Tribune among other periodicals. Walsh also published poems and articles in the Atlantic Monthly, American Speech, College English, Sewanee Review, Epoch, The Saturday Review of Literature, The New Republic, Spirit, Religion in Life, The Christian Scholar and others.

In 1957 Chad Walsh was awarded a Fulbright lectureship at the University of Turku in Finland where he occupied a chair in English literature. He was a guest lecturer in the department of English at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., during the academic year 1958-59. A frequent speaker before college and church organizations, Walsh was named to the Midwest lectureship panel of Phi Beta Kappa Associates in 1960.

Throughout his career, Chad Walsh published numerous books of poetry, religious books, and two textbooks. They include: (1947) Stop, Look and Listen, a brief, non denominational outline of Christianity; (1949) C.S. Lewis: Apostle to the Skeptics, a study of the famous oxford don; (1949) The Factual Dark, a collection of poetry; (1950) Early Christians of the 21st Century, an attempt to imagine the broad outlines of a "postmodern Christian civilization"; (1953) Knock and Enter, an introduction to Christianity written for children in the form of a novel; (1953) Campus Gods on Trial, a study of the attitudes of college students toward religion; (1954) Eden Two-Way, a second book of poetry; (1954) Faith and Behavior: Christian Answers to Moral Problems, with Eric Montizambert, a book trying to apply the teachings of Christ to everyday life; (1956) Behold the Glory, a devotional book; (1956) Nellie and her Flying Crocodile, a fantasy for children; (1960) The Rough Years, a novel about life in high school; (1962) From Utopia to Nightmare; (1962) Doors Into Poetry, a textbook; (1962) Why Go to Church?, with Eva Walsh, a book for adolescents; (1971) God at Large, a book talking about contemporary changes in religious consciousness; (1976) Twice Ten: An Introduction to Poetry, a textbook.

Walsh also edited a number of books, including: (1964) Today's Poets; (1965) Garlands for Christmas; (1967) The Honey and the Gall: Poems of Married Life.

Citation:

Chad Walsh Papers finding aid, Beloit College: [url=https://www.beloit.edu/archives/documents/archival_collections/faculty/chad_walsh/]https://www.beloit.edu/archives/documents/archival_collections/faculty/chad_walsh/[/url]

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