'A very fine man': Tracing the Burlington roots of Sterling Lord, literary agent extraordinaire

Sterling Lord was many things to many people — hero to a select few struggling writers and scourge of many woebegone wordsmiths.

He was also a native of Burlington.

As a noted New York literary agent, Lord's clients included Jimmy Breslin, Ken Kesey, Robert McNamara and Ted Kennedy.

Lord also introduced the world to Jack Kerouac, whose jazzy, beat-generation novel “On the Road” includes the famous line: "The prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.”

At age 99, Lord started a new literary agency and published Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Little Boy" in time for Ferlinghetti's 100th birthday.

Lord died at 102 in Ocala, Florida, on Sept, 3 — his birthday.

More: Sterling Lord, 'just a kid from Burlington' who became Jack Kerouac's literary agent, dies at 102

Burlington beginnings: Tennis star, high school newspaper editor

Lord was the Burlington High School newspaper editor, and while in the Army during World War II, he was an editor for a weekly magazine supplement of Stars and Stripes.

He was also a tennis singles champion in 1937 and 1938, ranked nationally in both the Boys and Juniors divisions. His 1976 book, "Returning The Serve Intelligently," was included in the U.S, Tennis Instructional Series published by Doubleday.

Lord's father was behind the Tri-State Tennis Tournament at the Burlington Golf Club in the 1950s and '60s. Burlington native and Seattle area psychotherapist Stephen Rowley was a ball boy for that tournament.

"It was a big deal back then," Rowley said. "I learned to play tennis from Sterling Sr. He was quite something, especially for his age."

'Last of the old-style gentlemen': A writer remembers Lord fondly

Iowa State history professor Stacy Cordery was a client of Lord's, who found her a publisher for her books about Juliette Gordon Low, Theodore Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and Alice Hathaway Lee.

Cordery described Lord as "the last of the old-style gentlemen."

"I pretty much owe my career as a writer to Sterling," Cordery told The Hawk Eye. "To me, he was always kind and courtly and compassionate."

Cordery taught at Monmouth College in Illinois, where she lived with her family while she struggled to become a writer, spending nearly two decades on her first manuscript, a biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the eldest child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.

"I was absolutely unknown. I can't even remember if I published one book, but if I had, it was a little one, and it was just to try to convince publishers that I could finish a project," Cordery said.

Cordery had been working on the Longworth biography "for-blinkin’-ever," and "I did other things in between: I got married, I had a baby, I got a job, I got tenure, all sorts of stuff happened — my mother died."

This was all while trying to find a publisher.

That book, the first Cordery did with Lord, is based on thousands of documents that came through Roosevelt's granddaughter, Joanna Sturm.

"Nobody had ever seen them before. No historian knew they existed, no archivist knew they existed," Cordery said.

At one point, Sturm suggested Cordery write about her father's side of the family and she put Cordery in touch with her father’s college roommate, a Wall Street financier, who suggested Cordery talk to his friend, a literary agent, when the book was done.

"I said, ‘Uh-huh, sure,’ thinking, 'I am a small-time professor in a small-time college and there's no literary agent who's ever going to be interested in me or my book,'" Cordery said. "But because he was very nice, and because he was connected to the granddaughter, I thought, 'OK, fine.'"

Cordery was about a chapter away from finishing the manuscript when she got Lord's phone number.

"I was so certain that this was going to go nowhere. To my eternal shame, I did not really look up this guy," Cordery said. "I just dialed the number. And as I was dialing, I pulled him up on my computer and my jaw dropped. The phone is ringing and for the first time, I'm looking at the Sterling Lord Literistic website."

Cordery said she was now terrified, so she jabbered at Lord.

"And he said, ‘Uhh … could you run that by me again, please, and slow it down?’ So all the while I'm trying to slow that sentence down, I'm still looking at the website, realizing that I'm talking to somebody who is truly legendary," she recalled.

Cordery told Lord she'd written a book about Alice Roosevelt Longworth. She told him where she taught.

Lord said, "I used to play tennis in Monmouth. I'm from Burlington, Iowa."

Cordery blurted out that she attended church in Burlington and suddenly, "The distance between the tiny little professor in the tiny little college and the enormous important agent in big New York City collapsed instantly."

Cordery and Lord talked about the changes in Burlington and the tennis courts — of course — at Monmouth College in Galesburg.

"After that, we had a bond," Cordery said. "And Sterling, as an agent, kept up with me. He would call me often throughout the years just to chat. He was very generous with his network of friends and associates."

Cordery was invited to speak at the first Sterling Lord Writers and Readers Festival in 2015 and again in 2018.

How Burlington came to recognize native son with Sterling Lord Day

The Burlington Public Library launched the Sterling Lord Writers and Readers Festival  in 2015. The inspiration of Burlington businessman Bob McCannon and former Iowa Secretary of State Elaine Baxter, the festival features both successful and budding writers.

"Elaine Baxter and Bob McCannon contacted me to meet and suggested that there should be something to recognize Sterling Lord in his hometown," librarian Rhonda Frevert said. "Sterling wasn't able to travel — he was 94 at the time — but graciously offered to Skype in to the first event and share some of his stories and answer questions."

McCannon said it all began with Lord's memoir, "Lord of Publishing," in which he mentions Baxter's husband, Harry Baxter Sr. McCannon called Elaine and said, ‘Do you know that your name is in the book?"

McCannon and Baxter contacted Lord because they thought he should get some recognition in Burlington.

"He invited us to come out," McCannon said. "I was going to New York on other business and so was Elaine, so we met there and made contact with him. He said, ‘Meet at my office.’ And we did. It occupied an entire floor. We got off the elevator into this big room, and it was lined with books. There must have been a ton of books that were first editions, by the authors, addressed to him."

After lunch, McCannon said, "Sterling, I don't think people in Burlington really understand. Could we do something for you?"

Upon returning to Burlington, McCannon and Baxter went to Frevert, who had attended Grinnell College — Lord's alma mater.

"So she came up with this program, the Annual Sterling Lord Writers and Readers Festival," McCannon said. "We all went down to the library and he talked to us via Skype. And that was the initial meeting of this program, which is ongoing and will be forever, I suppose."

Frevert continued to keep in contact with Lord but he didn't appear at the event after that first year.

"Sterling Lord was so gracious," Frevert said. "I'll always remember that he sent flowers to me as a thank you that first year."

Lord invited Frevert to lunch in 2018 when she was in New York for an event, and they met at the Russian Tea Room.

"He shared stories of Burlington and his career," Frevert said in her Hawk Eye newspaper column. "It was so enjoyable to hear him talk about the recent deals he was working on for a couple clients. He clearly was still passionate about promoting good authors, connecting them with the right publishers, and making sure they got solid contracts."

And he talked about tennis, of course.

"The newest building at Bracewell is located where the tennis courts sat that were named after his father," Frevert said.

There are many lengthy memories of Sterling Lord to be found online, from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times and every publication in between.

But ask anyone who knew him in Burlington and you'll hear something like this:

"He was a very fine man," McCannon concluded.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Tracing the Burlington roots of star literary agent Sterling Lord