Laura O. Tuck (1901-1952)

Teacher, Newspaper Columnist, Amateur Singer, Violinist, & Stage Actress, Housewife & Mother, Factory Worker

Born October 14, 1901, Lincoln, Nebraska
Died April 25, 1952, Los Angeles city or county, California

Laura Opal Tuck was born on October 14, 1901, in Lincoln, Nebraska, to William Henry Tuck, a veterinarian, and Catherine (Cresse) Tuck. Laura O. Tuck attended schools in Seward, Sutton, and Weeping Water, Nebraska. She graduated from Weeping Water High School in May 1921, but not before playing on the girl's basketball team, acting in her class play, and reporting on school news for the Weeping Water Republican. She attended summer school at the Nebraska State Normal School, now Peru State College, in Peru, Nebraska, and began teaching primary school in 1921. Laura taught in Comstock and Walton, also near Murdock and Greenwood, all in eastern Nebraska. In 1927, she married Oria Elroy Spelman in Lancaster County, Nebraska. He was an automobile mechanic and carpenter. The couple were in California by 1930 or 1931. They had three children together, one of whom died at birth.

Laura was an amateur singer, violinist, and stage actress. She performed in her class play at Weeping Water High School and in a play called "Neighbors" at Chadderdon's Hall, Weeping Water, on July 27 and 28, 1922. Her travels and activities were well documented in her hometown paper. Her young life must have been an exciting one. There were hazards, too, a quarantine for smallpox, travel by car and train through the aftermath of a blizzard in order to reach the schoolhouse. An online photograph of her shows a pretty young woman with a mass of dark hair. I have a feeling she was well loved in her hometown.

Laura O. Tuck wrote a single letter published in Weird Tales. It appeared in September 1925, one hundred years ago this month:

Laura O. Tuck, of Weeping Water, Nebraska, writes: "I would suggest that you reprint some of Francis Marion Crawford's stories, for instance Man Overboard, The Upper Berth and The Screaming Skull. By pure accident I ran across WEIRD TALES last January: it is just what I have been looking for for years. I have looked in vain for this [sic] kind of stories in other magazines and digging in odd corners of libraries, but now I know just where to go to get 'my' kind of stories. Please let us have more stories like The Lure of Atlantis [by Joel Martin Nichols] (in last April's WEIRD TALES), which is my favorite of all the stories I have read so far." [Boldface added.]

We can only imagine the lives of those who came before us, of people who lived in places far-flung from the big cities of the East and Midwest. Weeping Water is still like a tiny island in a sea of farm fields. In letters sent to "The Eyrie," we can read about the joy and pleasure of these people at discovering and reading Weird Tales. We can imagine what it must have been like for them finally to find what Laura O. Tuck called "'my' kind of stories."

Laura Spelman went far from her home in the late 1920s or early 1930s. In later years, she worked in a pottery factory in California. I think she deserved better than what she got in life, but then that's so very often true on this earth, in this vale of tears. She died young, too young, on April 25, 1952, in Los Angeles city or county.

Laura O. Tuck's Letter in Weird Tales

• September 1925

(By the way, the name Weeping Water echoes ideas I wrote about recently about the pseudonymous author Adrian Pordelorrar. Strange coincidence.)

Original text copyright 2025 Terence E. Hanley