Mevanee Parmer

Keep on the Sunny Side is the family memoir of Alta Wyly, Mevanee Parmer's grandmother. It contains almost 100 vintage photographs and over 20 songs and poems, as well as family letters, accounts and diary selections. Above, Mevanee shares a birthday cake with Alta. Alta always enjoyed a gathering of her community of any size and every age. For an interactive look at responses to the book and more information, go to the FaceBook page, Keep on the Sunny Side. Also click on the video to see Nova Wyly Vaughn give us a short tour of the foundation her papa built in 1927.

Mevanee grew up in the Texas Panhandle. Her life was enriched by both maternal and paternal grandparents and 50 cousins. Although the book is written about Alta Wyly, she was close to her paternal grandparents, Smith and Corean Purdy as well. Mevanee published a long poem of vignettes about her paternal grandfather in the 2019 Texas High Plains Writers Anthology, entitled With Words We Weave. She published a humorous short story in the 2020 Texas High Plains Writers Anthology based her grandson's episodes with his great-grandparents.

Her first essay about her Grandpa Purdy caught the attention of her 8th grade English teacher, Mrs. Polaczek, who saved the essay as a model for other classes. When Grandpa Purdy tragically died, the family used that essay at his funeral. The Writer, Mevanee, was born (at least, in her mind).

Professionally Mevanee taught freshman writing classes at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge and several other universities and colleges. She and her family also went to Johannesburg, South Africa for 5 years to help start a multi-racial church. She recently retired after teaching 8th grade Language Arts and Reading for 23 years in Champaign, Illinois.

Another middle school assignment, a speech explaining “How to Dope a Scratcher” was based on an adventure with Uncle Wilson at his South Dakota ranch. It foreshadowed her published family memoir Keep on the Sunny Side. Her widowed maternal grandmother, Alta Wyly, is the heroine of that tale. And the hero is her uncle, the 15-year-old Wilson. Someone has said the stories we need to write about are learned before we are 6-years-old. Mevanee’s life and writings bear out that truth.

Mevanee inherited a love for gardening from all her grandparents and enjoys strolls in Palo Duro Canyon with her husband Phill, who is also a published poet. They enjoy seven grandchildren who are spread from Philadelphia to Illinois and to California.