Dorothy Bates
1950s word man? Arkansas woman
Author, 96, was a puzzler herself
BY KENNETH HEARDARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
As Lee Keith, she wrote books during the 1950s to help others solve crossword and picture puzzles.
But the author never gave a clue about who Lee Keith was, preferring that her readers think she was a man. All this time, the books continued to sell.
“People would have thought I was crazy if I told them Lee Keith was a woman,” the 96-year-old Bates said during an interview last week in her Pocahontas home. “They wouldn’t have had any faith in a woman making word lists and solving puzzles in those days.”
Her thinking was that men had more credibility, even when it came to games and riddles.
Keith’s gender came out this past spring after a nephew, Gary Gazaway, began archiving his aunt’s massive book collection and came upon thousands of her puzzle books dating to 1950. That was the year Bates finished compiling an alphabetized list of every twothree- and four- letter word found in the Merriam-Webster 2nd International Dictionary.
“My wife said we should make someone know about these books,” Gazaway said.
So he sent e-mails about Bates — whose maiden name is Dorothy Lee Keith — to puzzle aficionados, including Will Shortz, crossword editor of The New York Times and featured “Puzzle Master” on National Public Radio, and Vic Fleming, a Little Rock traffic judge who creates crosswords.
As a result, Bates is to be honored at 11 a.m. Saturday during the Pocahontas Sesquicentennial celebration. Fleming will host a showing of Wordplay — the documentary about Shortz, his puzzle work and his loyal fan base — at the Imperial Theater in Pocahontas. The movie, which also features Fleming, won a Grand Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Bates will receive a certificate signed by Shortz in recognition of her work. Fleming will be present to unveil a crossword puzzle about Bates and her life. Clues include “48 Across: Real first name of Lee Keith” and “21 Across: Topic of Lee Keith’s specialty.”
“[Bates’ ] books are artifacts,” Shortz said in a telephone interview Sept. 8 from his Pleasantville, N.Y., home. “They are part of puzzle history. I used her word lists for puzzle construction all the time.”
(And, thinking all the time that Lee Keith was a man.)
Bates was born and raised in Randolph County. An affinity for words became evident at an early age, Gazaway said.
“She made sure every word she wrote was spelled correctly and her grammar was excellent,” he said.
In 1927, as a high school student in Pocahontas, Bates won a statewide geometry contest. She enjoyed the competition and soon entered national crossword-puzzle and picture-puzzle contests.
“I was making a lot of money in the contests,” said Bates, who fell last year and is confined to a wheelchair. Her health is failing and doctors have diagnosed her in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
Bates took first prize in several contests, once winning a car; another time she received $25,000 for solving a puzzle.
“That was a lot of money in those days,” she said, laughing.
She attended Draughons Business College in Little Rock and worked for several Pocahontas attorneys. In 1931, she married Bill Bates, Randolph County’s first veterinarian.
The two were married for nearly 70 years before her husband died in 1999.
Bates began cataloging words in 1947, coming home from work and compiling her lists long into the night. She sometimes worked 20 hours straight.
“I used to work crosswords all the time,” she said. “I wanted to make something that would help others solve the puzzles.”
In 1950, she wrote Picture Puzzles, a book designed to help readers solve riddles concealed in a series of pictures. Also, about this time, her books of word lists were published. Eventually, she assembled every dictionary word of eight or fewer letters.
Gazaway found his aunt’s Merriam-Webster dictionary recently. Each word was checked by a different-colored pencil. Bates had color-coded the words according to the number of letters each had.
In her 1954 book, How to Win Contest Prizes, Bates wrote about why she entered puzzle contests.
“Good hard American cash is what all entrants seek,” she wrote in the book’s preface. “Persons participate in contests for the same reasons that most lawyers handle cases and dentists pull teeth: payment.”
She began selling the books from her home. Word pamphlets sold for $3. Her prize-contest books went for $5 or more. Bates’ address remained the same over the years: P.O. Box 348, Pocahontas, reflecting the rural nature of the region.
“I believe that if I were to address this letter merely to Lee Keith, 72455, it would surely reach you,” Fleming wrote to Bates when he learned that “he” was a “she.”
A Pocahontas postmaster had told Bates she was the post office’s best customer in the 1950s because of the volume of mail she received and sent, Gazaway said. Bates continued receiving mail for decades. Two years ago, a man in Toronto, Ontario, wrote to her post office box.
“Can you tell me whatever happened to Mr. Keith?” the writer asked. “I have many of his contest books and was wondering if any more can be purchased. Last book received was Past Puzzle Pictures. Unbeatable book.”
Letters have poured in for Bates from across the country; Gazaway found a collection of notes from fans that span the past 30 years. All of her fans referred to Bates as “Mr. Keith” in their correspondence.
Gazaway plans to construct an Internet Web site as a tribute to his aunt. The site, which he plans to locate at www.leekeith.com, will reveal who she is and include photographs of Bates and articles about her work, he said.
“She was ahead of her time,” said Shortz, who has a degree in enigmatology, the study of puzzles, from the University of Indiana. “Before the invention of the Internet, it was much faster making and solving puzzles using her word lists.
“I would never dream that the person who wrote these books is still living,” he said. “And I never would dream that Lee Keith was a woman.”
This story was published Sunday, September 17, 2006