If you grew up prior to the 1990s, you may remember what life was like before the Internet brought the world into our homes. If you wanted to research a topic, get help solving a riddle, or find the latest best-seller, you went to your local library.
Librarians were the original “human search engines” of their communities. They were masters of the card catalog, date-stamped every book checked out and returned, and stood ready with recommendations to help neighbors find the perfect “good book” to read.
In Marion, North Carolina, county librarian Alice Bryan shared the joys and quirks of her librarian job in a weekly newspaper column. She quickly noticed that readers had some very unique strategies for choosing their next read!
From the “Marion Progress” newspaper, 1946.
When one lady in the library asked, “How can I tell a good book when I see one?” another patron quickly spoke up: “See how many names are on the card!”
(For our younger readers: back then, every book contained a paper card that patrons physically signed when checking it out. A card packed full of names was the ultimate 1940s version of a five-star review!)
Other readers chose books based on its physical characteristics. “Lightweight books are the best,” one lady told Alice, while pre-schoolers often picked their books by size—the bigger, the better!
But when patrons weren’t judging books by their weight or size, an equally large number asked for them by author. Popular authors like Zane Grey, Agatha Christie, and Mary Roberts Rinehart were always in demand—but there was one name Alice Bryan saw flying off the shelves more than any other: Grace Livingston Hill.
From the “Marion Progress” newspaper April 3, 1947.
Alice frequently highlighted Grace as a reader favorite for “light fiction.” The appeal of Grace’s books even seemed to cross generations. One day Alice overheard this conversation between a group of sixth-grade girls at the library:
from the “Marion Progress,” April 17, 1947.
By the mid-1940s, Grace Livingston Hill was at the absolute peak of her writing career with almost one-hundred beloved novels to her credit. In an uncertain, complicated post-World War II climate, readers eagerly sought out her stories for their comfort, warmth, and reliable messages of eternal hope.
Of course, long-time readers of this blog know that Grace’s writing talent was practically a family trait—she was Isabella Alden’s cherished niece. Both women shared a remarkable gift for understanding what readers needed most. By seamlessly weaving messages of faith and comfort into their stories, they ensured that current and future generations of readers knew exactly where to turn for a truly “good book.”
Between 1900 and 1910 American consumers were introduced to some revolutionary new inventions and products that would significantly change their lives. In 1903 the Wright Brothers powered their first sustained airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
In 1908 the first Model T Ford automobile rolled off the production line in Detroit, Michigan.
Other inventions during the decade included the safety razor (1901), Cornflakes (1907), teabags (1904), washing machines (1908), and vacuum cleaners (1901).
From a 1909 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
But in 1907, an entirely new product took the country by storm: the Thermos bottle. This cleverly designed vacuum bottle could keep drinks hot or cold for hours—something no other portable container could do.
Ad in a 1909 issue of Life magazine.
It’s easy to imagine Isabella Alden embracing this new invention, especially given the lifestyle she adopted after she and her family moved to California around 1901.
The Aldens settled in Palo Alto, where son Raymond was teaching at Stanford University. A few years later, Isabella and her husband became involved with the newly-founded Mount Hermon Christian camp near Santa Cruz. Mount Hermon reminded her of her beloved Chautauqua Institution, and it quickly became her summertime place of peace where she could rest, read, and worship among the giant redwood trees. Isabella recalled:
“Tent life seemed to belong to it as much as houses belong in most other places. We ate out of doors, and worked out of doors, and practically slept out of doors, with all the curtains of the tent looped high.”
When Thermos bottles first appeared in stores, they were luxury items. Depending on size, prices ranged from $3.50 to just over $5.00—the equivalent of about $125 to $150 in today’s money.
From a 1908 booklet, “Everything for the Autoist but the Auto.”
Travelers quickly embraced the Thermos bottle as a necessity worth the investment. Upper-middle class households purchased them, too, using Thermos bottles to keep food and drinks at stable temperatures without relying on wood-fire stoves, electricity, or refrigeration—all expensive options.
One in a series of trade cards distributed by The American Thermos Company.
The American Thermos Bottle Company of Norwich, Connecticut, launched a full ad campaign in magazines, trade journals, and newspapers. As sales increased, they launched additional products—pitchers and carafes, food storage bowls, and even completely furnished picnic baskets. With growing demand came increased production, and by the 1920s Thermos bottles were much more affordably priced.
Isabella never specifically mentioned a Thermos in her memoirs or her stories, but throughout her life she eagerly embraced new inventions and technologies. It seems probable that during those early rustic summer days at Mount Hermon, she might have had a Thermos bottle at her side for a cool drink of water.
Isabella’s niece, author Grace Livingston Hill, was also quick to embrace new inventions, and mentioned Thermos bottles in her novels, including The Prodigal Girl (1929) and The Street of the City (1942). In her novel Ladybird (1930), Grace wrote about the main character Fraley MacPherson marveling over a picnic lunch:
“There were other little packages with other sandwiches, some with fragrant slices of pink ham between them. There were hard-boiled eggs rolled in paper. There were olives and pickles, and chocolate cake and cookies, and white grapes and oranges—a feast for a king! There was coffee amazingly hot in a Thermos bottle. And in the wilderness!”
Thermos magazine ad from 1909
Whether or not Isabella actually owned a Thermos, she certainly lived during one of the most innovative decades in American history—and she took advantage of it. Her writing shows someone who was genuinely curious about new inventions and quick to see how they might improve her daily life. That openness to change and progress is just one more reason her work still feels surprisingly modern today.
You can read more about how Isabella embraced new inventions and technology in these posts:
Have you ever asked a famous person for their autograph?
After seeing a play, did you ever go backstage or wait outside the theater at the stage door to congratulate a performer and ask them to sign the play bill?
Or at a sporting event, have you had a chance to talk to one of your favorite players and ask them to sign your hat or team jersey?
For many people, collecting autographs is an expression of genuine admiration for a person’s talent or achievements. It’s also a way for them to feel closer to someone they admire from afar.
That was the case for Leona McGill, a teenager growing up in Winona, Minnesota in the 1920s. She was an avid reader, and gained fame in her home town by collecting autographed letters from every author whose book she read. In July 1920 her hometown newspaper wrote an extensive article about her efforts.
In some of her letters to authors, Leona expressed her admiration for their writing talents. In other letters she asked authors for advice on how to launch her own writing career. She wrote hundreds of letters, and received an almost equal number of replies!
The majority of the replies she received were short and to the point, like this one from Booth Tarkington:
Zane Grey, famous for his novels about the American West, was a bit more friendly with his reply:
Another famous author Leona wrote to was Isabella Alden’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill. In her reply to Leona, Grace sounded very much as if she were writing to an old friend. Here is what she wrote:
I am afraid you will think I have been a long, long time getting an answer to your lovely letter, but if you could see the pile of letters lying on my desk that I have waded thru before I got yours and could know how very busy I have been all this fall and winter I’m sure you would forgive me. I write very few letters by hand because I have not time and the typewriter is so much faster but because you have asked it, I am writing this. Boys and girls are very near my heart and when they want something I know how much they want it.
You ask about “The Mystery of Mary”—yes—that is one of mine—one of what I call my “crazy” stories in distinction from the more serious ones.
I am sure I ought to be very proud to be put in the same list with such distinguished writers as have written you and I want to thank you for your pleasant words about my stories.
Leona must have written a very persuasive letter to receive such a lovely and thorough response! Or perhaps Grace simply knew the sort of letter a teenage girl would love to receive.
You can read the entire article about Leona McGill and see more of the authors’ replies by clicking here.
For more than a quarter of a century, Isabella edited newspapers (like The Pansy), wrote innumerable novels and short stories, taught classes on homemaking and child rearing, served congregations as a pastor’s wife, and designed Sunday school lessons for children. In between all that, she somehow managed to travel extensively.
Sometimes she was called upon to deliver an address at a conference. Other times she was the guest of a ladies’ missionary society or Bible study, where she often read chapters from one of the stories or novels she was working on at the time. (You can read more about that here.)
From the Rome, New York “Daily Sentinel,” August 18, 1898.
When she returned home from one of her many trips, her family gathered around her so she could tell them all about the places she went and the people she met. Her niece, Grace Livingston Hill wrote:
“She saw everything, and she knew how to tell, with glowing words, about the days she had been away so that she lived them over again for us. It was almost better than if we had been along, because she knew how to bring out the touch of pathos or beauty or fun, and her characters were all portraits. It listened like a book.”
One time in particular, Isabella returned home with an extraordinary story. Speaking at the same event had been a woman who was active in many of the same efforts that were of interest to Isabella, such as woman’s suffrage, and the temperance movement. Like Isabella, the woman was well known across the country as a writer and as a much-in-demand public speaker. It was this woman who recounted to Isabella an incident that happened to her.
With the woman’s permission (and with a promise to keep the woman’s identity a secret), Isabella wrote a short story based on the woman’s experience.
The premise of the story is this: A woman traveling by train to a speaking engagement notices an older man and younger woman traveling together on the same train. She quickly realizes she had come upon a couple in the middle of an elopement—and that the young would-be bride is having second thoughts!
How Isabella’s friend intervened (and what happened after) were recounted in Isabella’s story. When it was finished, Isabella sent the story off to a Christian newspaper that was pledged to publish a certain number of her stories each year.
To her surprise, the editor wrote back to ask Isabella if she had considered that the story might suggest to young people “evil ways of which they had never read.”
Can you imagine that? The editor actually worried that Isabella’s story about an elopement might have a negative or “evil” influence on the young people who read it!
In the end, Isabella withdrew the story, locked it away, and forgot all about it. Then, in the late 1920s, she came across the old manuscript and decided to expand the story into a novel.
The result was An Interrupted Night, and the story’s lead character of Mrs. Mary Dunlap was based on Isabella’s friend and the unusual events she told Isabella about decades before.
An Associated Press newspaper photo of Isabella in her later years.
By the time she finished writing the book and submitted it to a publisher, Isabella was in frail health. When the publisher asked her to make some edits to her manuscript, Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill, stepped in to help her “put it into final shape.”
The book was released in the fall of 1929 with a decidedly modern-looking cover:
And it was received by a decidedly modern audience that took the story’s premise of an eloping couple in stride. Isabella later wrote that she “exploded with laughter” when she thought about how much the world had changed in the years since she first wrote the story.
Now An Interrupted Night is available for twenty-first century readers to enjoy with a brand new cover:
Mary Dunlap is on her way to a speaking engagement when the train on which she travels experiences engine trouble and must make an unexpected stop for the night. While frustrated by the delay, Mrs. Dunlap quickly realizes a couple on the train is in the middle of an elopement—and the would-be bride is having second thoughts! Drawing on God’s strength, Mrs. Dunlap intervenes; but can she convince the young woman to abandon her plan and return home to her mother before it’s too late?
An Interrupted Night is now available from The Pansy Shop, along with novels by Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, Mary McCrae Culter, and other Christian authors in Isabella’s circle of family and friends. Click on the tab in the menu above, or click here to check out The Pansy Shop!
BY THE WAY …
Who do you think was the “real” Mrs. Mary Dunlap? Frances Willard or Emily Huntington Miller Perhaps Harriett Lothrop (who wrote as “Margaret Sidney”)? Leave your guess in the comments below!
This is the second of two posts about Isabella’s most difficult year. If you missed the first post, you can read it here.
In the spring and summer months of 1924, Isabella and her family carried on without her beloved husband, Ross, who died in March of that year.
The influenza epidemic that precipitated Rev. Alden’s death had waned, but there were still reported cases as late as the summer of 1924. That’s when Isabella’s sister Marcia fell ill.
Marcia Livingston
Again a doctor was called to the house in Swarthmore to treat her, but the virus had weakened her heart. On August 7, Marcia succumbed to myocarditis, a rare but serious condition that causes inflammation of the heart muscle.
It had to have been a devastating blow to Isabella. For their entire lives, she and Marcia had been close. Marcia was the sister who tended Isabella when she was young, who watched over her when she was ill, and prayed that Isabella would choose Christ as her Saviour (you can read more about that here). Marcia helped introduced Isabella to her husband Ross; and after Isabella married, the Livingstons and the Aldens shared a home in Florida, and lived as neighbors at Chautauqua. They were as close as sisters could be.
Isabella Alden (left) and her sister Marcia Livingston (courtesy Daena Creel).
Isabella wrote:
I held the dear hand of my one remaining sister Marcia all that day, and prayed for one more clasp of it, one look of recognition, all in vain. She went, as did my dear husband, without a word or look.
Marcia was laid to rest in Johnstown, New York; that was where Marcia and Isabella grew up, and where Marcia met her husband Charles (you can read more about that here). Her grave is beside Charles’ grave and the grave of their infant son Percy.
Marcia Macdonald Livingston’s grave marker in the Johnstown Cemetery.
Although there’s no known record of it, Isabella, Grace, and other family members may have traveled to New York for the interment. If they did make the journey, it’s probable that Isabella’s son Raymond did not accompany them.
By the time Marcia died, Raymond was receiving medical care in Philadelphia for a chronic condition. All his life Raymond endured a painful form of eczema that caused open sores and blisters, leaving him prone to infection. In May of 1924, Raymond’s condition became worse, and he began to regularly see a doctor in Philadelphia.
Raymond Alden, from the Stanford University 1923 Yearbook.
By July Raymond’s wife Barbara wrote to her cousin about Raymond’s health, saying that although he was still very sick, he had shown “marked improvement.”
From The Peninsula Times Tribune, July 15, 1924.
But his improvement was short-lived. By September Raymond was suffering from an infection and, possibly, from an allergic reaction to medications he was given.
On September 27, less than two months after the death of his aunt, Raymond Alden died. Isabella was with him at the end.
“Mamma, fan me!” was the quick eager word my dear boy said, and the next minute he was gone.
Grace later wrote:
My saintly uncle went first, then my precious mother, and then my brilliant cousin, Dr. Raymond M. Alden. One blow after another that nearly crushed us all.
The family held a private funeral service for Raymond in Philadelphia; then it was time for the Aldens to leave Swarthmore and return to their Palo Alto home. Grace described it this way:
Then my dear aunt, courageous and wonderful through it all, went back to her California home with her brave daughter-in-law, and her five grandchildren.
From The Peninsula Times Tribune, October 18, 1924.
There must have been times when Isabella felt the acute loneliness of losing the three most important people in her life. She once wrote to Grace:
There is no one in all the world who needs me any more. I’m too old to help anybody in any way, and too weak to be anything but a burden to those who have already more than they can bear. Why can’t I go now to my eternal rest? Does it seem to you wrong to pray for this?
There were other times when she spoke of the many family members who had died over the years, and asked impishly, “What do they think of us all by this time? Do they meet together and talk us all over?” She thought often of the loved ones who had “gone ahead” and wrote to Grace:
Sometimes I have to put my hands over my eyes in the darkness and say: “Casting all—All—ALL your care upon Him.” Oh, why doesn’t He take me home?”
But God did not call her home. Isabella lived with Barbara and her grandchildren in the house she and Ross built on Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto for another six years.
Barbara Hitt Alden, about 1910
By all accounts, Barbara was loving and kind and “more than a daughter” to Isabella. And despite Isabella’s belief that she was “too weak to be anything but a burden” to Barbara, she would soon find that her work on Earth was not done, and that she had one last novel to write before she would be called Home to her Saviour.
On the surface, it may seem that Isabella led a charmed life. Her husband was beloved a minister and a leader in the Presbyterian Church.
Gustavus “Ross” Alden in later years (about 1912)
Her son Raymond was a talented writer, a beloved teacher, and an esteemed academic.
Isabella Alden, about 1895.
Isabella, herself, had been a successful author for decades, as well as an influential editor of various Christian magazines for young people and adults.
With so many proud accomplishments in her life, it’s hard to remember that Isabella had her share of heartache and loss.
Some of those losses were made all the more difficult because they occurred almost in a back-to-back fashion during one six-month period in her life. And it happened one-hundred years ago.
The year 1924 began on a positive note for the entire Alden family. Isabella’s son Raymond—who was head of the English Department at Stanford University in California—was on sabbatical so he could teach courses at Columbia University in New York. It was an exciting career opportunity for Raymond.
Undated photo of Raymond Macdonald Alden.
His topics during that Spring Session at Columbia were:
English Literature from 1780 to 1830.
Shakespeare
Versification
Raymond Alden listed as a Visiting Professor in the English and Comparative Literature department, Columbia Course Catalog for 1923-1924.
Raymond, his wife Barbara, and their five children (ages 2 to 14) made the move east together and rented a home within an easy commute to Columbia’s campus.
Barbara Hitt Alden, in her early twenties.
Isabella and her husband Ross went, too. Ross was 92 years old and had been officially retired from the ministry for some time, but he still enjoyed excellent health and a quick wit and intellect. Isabella was still writing novels, but she too had “retired” and had adopted a much slower pace when it came to her work.
Isabella and Ross moved into the Swarthmore, Pennsylvania home of Isabella’s sister Marcia Livingston and niece Grace Livingston Hill. Grace often described Marcia and Isabella as “inseparable” sisters, and for the majority of their lives, the Aldens and the Livingstons spent much of their time together.
It was while the Aldens were staying with Marcia and Grace in Swarthmore in the spring of 1924 that tragedy struck.
Grace Livingston Hill’s Home, Swarthmore, PA.
At that time Philadelphia was dealing with an influenza epidemic. The particular strain that prevailed during the spring of 1924 often caused pneumonia.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 18, 1924.
Unfortunately, antibiotics like penicillin and sulfonamides were not as widely available as they are today; so doctors could offer little in the way of treatment for pneumonia, beyond recommending bed rest, and drinking fluids. Almost every day newspapers reported new outbreaks of the influenza virus, as well as the number of deaths, and it often seemed as if no one was safe.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 1, 1924.
Health officials warned that a common cold or a mild case of the flu could quickly turn into a deadly case of pneumonia. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to Rev. Alden. At ninety-two years of age he was particularly susceptible to pneumonia, and although the family brought in a physician in to treat him, he died on March 29, 1924.
From The Peninsula Times Tribune, April 14, 1924.
His death was reported in newspapers across the country and the tributes and remembrances came pouring in. People wrote about their memories of when he was their church minister. They related the anecdotes he used to illustrate his sermons and teachings; and they mentioned the close friendships they formed with him in the Sabbath School classes he taught.
Perhaps Isabella had a chance to read some of those tributes. And she no doubt relied upon her sister Marcia’s support, as well as the tender care that Raymond, Barbara and Grace would have provided.
Isabella made the decision to remain in Swarthmore until summer, so Raymond could fulfill his teaching responsibilities at Columbia. Then, the Alden family planned to travel together back to their home in Palo Alto, California, where Rev. Alden’s remains would be laid to rest.
In her remembrances of her uncle, Grace recalled a poem he wrote and had printed as a New Year greeting card. He sent the cards to the members of his Bible class the last winter he was with them before going to Swarthmore. It reads:
TODAY
We are living today—not tomorrow, For no morrow was ever yet seen; And for joy, or for pain, or for sorrow, Only yesterdays ever have been.
God gives us duties—just for today; And His strength He bestows by the hour, “Grace is sufficient” we still hear Him say, So we trust Him for wisdom and power.
And since today is all that He gives, Let us treasure the day as it stands. It matters, then, much how everyone lives For tomorrow God holds in His hands.
It’s the time of year when many people make resolutions—to study their Bible more often, lose weight, or spend more time with family and friends. But how many people resolve to change their life in order to benefit a stranger? That’s the premise of our January free read.
Grace Livingston Hill wrote “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died” in 1897, and it was based on true events. At that time, French actress Sarah Bernhardt was a theatrical titan, who enjoyed world-wide fame.
Undated photo of Sarah Bernhardt in character.
She toured the globe in plays she produced and starred in. She was a master of self-promotion and cultivated a larger-than-life persona that the newspapers and magazines of the time eagerly reported to their readers. She was, arguably, the world’s first true international superstar.
Undated photo of Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra.
Bernhardt first performed in America in 1880, when Grace was fifteen years old. Bernhardt’s American tour lasted several months. She performed in cities across the country, and each performance was met with thunderous applause and critical acclaim.
Bernhardt performing onstage in Berkeley, California, 1906.
In 1897 Bernhardt toured England, where she was so much in demand that she sometimes appeared in multiple plays at once, performing a matinee in one theater, then playing the lead in an entirely different play in a different theater that same evening!
From The Times, London, June 16, 1897.
But not everyone embraced Sarah Bernhardt with open arms. Despite her talent and riveting performances, conservative members of society and many religious groups viewed the theater as a morally corrupting influence, especially for women.
A promotional poster for Bernhardt’s 1905/1906 American tour.
Female actors were frequently stigmatized as immoral or promiscuous. Sarah Bernhardt—with her unconventional lifestyle, her bold stage performances, and numerous love affairs both within and outside of her marriage—scandalized a good portion of the population.
Bernahrdt as Napoleon. Her costume, with its form-fitting pantaloons, was considered quite scandalous.
Grace Livingston Hill knew about Sarah Bernhardt and probably read many of the newspaper articles about her. She also had strong opinions about Bernhardt and theater entertainments, which she used as the theme of her story, “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died.”
“Did you go out to see Bernhardt last evening, Murray?”
When three young men meet to pass a Sunday afternoon together, they never imagine that such a simple question can spark a very complicated discussion! But Frank Murray has read his Bible, and he is willing to forego some of the world’s pleasures if it means he will never be a stumbling-block to fall in another Christian brother’s way. Will Frank be able to explain his position to his new friends so they, too, will strive to help a weak brother in Christ?
You can read “The Weak Brother for Whom Christ Died” for free!
Choose the reading option you like best:
You can read the story on your computer, phone, tablet, Kindle, or other electronic device. Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
Or you can select BookFunnel’s “email” option to receive an email with a version you can read, print, and share with friends.
Like her aunt Isabella, Grace Livingston Hill expressed her creative talents in many ways. Although she was best known for writing Christian novels and short stories (click here to read a few), she also wrote poetry.
After her first child Margaret was born in 1893, Grace wrote this charming poem to her darling little daughter:
The birdies have tucked their heads under their wings,
And cuddled down closely, the dear little things;
And my darling birdie is here in her nest,
With her heart nestled close on her own mother’s breast.
The wind sings a sleepy song soft to the roses,
And kisses the buds on the tips of their noses.
Shall I sing a sleepy song soft to my sweet,
And kiss the pink toes of her precious wee feet?
The butterflies fold their silver-gauze wings,
And now sweetly sleep with all the fluttering things;
Will you fold your wee palms, my dear little girl,
And rest the tired footies, my dainty rare pearl?
The violet sweet has closed its blue eye,
That has gazed all day long at the clear summer sky:
Now droop the dark fringes over your eyes;
They are weary with holding great looks of surprise.
The flower-bells have drooped their meek little heads,
And laid themselves down in their soft, mossy beds.
Your golden head droops and your eyes are shut quite;
Shall I lay you down soft on your pillow so white?
Grace’s lovely poem was published in newspapers across the country . What do you think of “Margaret’s Lullaby”?
“And you think the Lord gives attention to such little details as how long a potato should cook?” asked Ruth earnestly.
“Why, yes, dear,” answered the mother, “if you put a matter, even a little matter, into the Lord’s hands to guide you, and trust that He will, of course, He will.”
—Chapter 7, The Substitute Guest
Oh, those wonderful meals! The ones that make you want to put down the book and head straight for the kitchen! In Grace Livingston Hill’s novels, the magnificent aroma of home cooking fills the air in boarding house and humble home, alike. Quite often, they have a mission all their own.
Grace Livingston Hill did more writing than cooking, but she knew her way around a kitchen and you can tell. Her heroines could put together a full meal at a moment’s notice, pull a hearty lunch out of thin air with the aid of a jar of beef-extract, a can of baked beans, and another of tomatoes or they could single-handedly extinguish flaming pork chops in the midst of buying a tiny house!
If they couldn’t manage it themselves, they could always depend on someone like Aunt Hannah or Molly Poppleton to create a feast that was unforgettable. Then afterward, the dishes were marshaled into the kitchen sink, carefully washed and left to dry (scientifically, of course!) and the buckwheat cakes were set for tomorrow’s breakfast.
As an avid reader of all things Grace Livingston Hill and Pansy, I was fascinated by their detailed descriptions of home life. I could just imagine myself snowed in with my family and welcoming The Substitute Guest into our home and hearth. Just one catch—our home was an apartment and our hearth was an electric stove! Nevertheless, I was determined to somehow recreate that wholesome fare for my own family!
I chanced upon my very first vintage cookbook, a 1931 copy of The Settlement Cookbook, at a quaint roadside stand and began looking for recipes that would have been served on the tables of Grace’s characters. Many more would follow! I wanted to learn how to really cook, instead of relying on cans and boxes and take out.
Apple pie, gingerbread and sugary doughnuts seemed to be simple enough, to be served with a great pitcher of milk or amber coffee. But buckwheat cakes always fascinated me. They appear on nearly a dozen different GLH tables, often paired with sausage and real maple syrup. I had questions.
What exactly is a buckwheat and where do you get one? And what about hubbard squash? I love the name, but no one around here has even heard of it! Flannel cakes? Raspberry vinegar? Caraway Seed Cookies? I wanted to try them all!
Sometimes I had a hard time deciphering the vintage instructions in that little gem of a cookbook. Sometimes there weren’t any—just a list of ingredients! Sometimes I got them very wrong—like the first night I “set my buckwheats” and woke up to an explosion of batter everywhere in the kitchen! Or finally finding someone who knew what a hubbard squash was and actually had one for sale, but not telling us how to open the ugly, gray thing. We had to use a miter saw!!
That’s a photo of my first hubbard squash! I included the recipe on page 50 of the GLH cookbook, or you can download it by clicking here.
I was suddenly adventuring into the books in a way I’d never done before and I loved it!.
“But, wouldn’t it be nice to have all of those recipes in one cookbook?”
I definitely wasn’t alone. Flash back to the early days of the internet. The GLHill Yahoo Group had lots of great email discussions about the more mysterious foods that Grace’s characters enjoyed. Things like Junket (hurried up with a second tablet) or aspic (made to match the dining room) or the dreaded…tongue and peaches! What were these strange things? And could we make those, too?
A few dozen of us set out to catalog the food in all of the GLH books. I was sure this would be a quick project and a cookbook would soon appear. It certainly seemed like a lot of of those favorite foods were repeated. Except they weren’t. There were hundreds of foods, many of them appearing in only one book. This wasn’t looking good. Putting together a single cookbook on my own suddenly seemed like a herculean task.
Smaller seemed like a better approach, so I eventually decided to focus on just the holiday books and asked for help from the online family again. From Thanksgiving with the Lorrimers in The Christmas Bride to that snowed-in Christmas with The Substitute Guest, we tried to cover the festive meals from all of our favorites, right down to the maple-sugar hearts tucked into the stockings in Star of Wonder!
Tea Rolls, from a handwritten recipe left inside a vintage cookbook. Translation is on page 26 in the GLH Cookbook.
A lot of time went into pairing up menus and recipes. It was truly a labor of love. Members of our original group and many more we met along the way on social media served as “test chefs” or did proofreading. There were even a few “family secret” recipes shared for the cookbook. It was a delight to put together and it was meant solely for our GLH groups to enjoy. Much to my surprise, it’s been discovered by hundreds more kindred readers around the world!
Have you always wanted to taste those memories from yesterday? You can join in on the holiday fun, too. The Grace Livingston Hill Cookbook, Volume 1: Vintage Recipes from the Holiday Books is available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions, or you can purchase a personalized, signed copy by reaching out by email at stories@gracelivingstonhill.com. And by the way, there’s a GLH Christmas story tucked into the back of the cookbook that you’ve probably never read. It’s called The Half of a Christmas and it’s my gift to everyone with a copy of the cookbook.
Original illustration from The Half of a Christmas in “Our Sunday Afternoon” December 18, 1891
The Giveaway:
We’re giving away three paperback copies of The Grace Livingston Hill Cookbook, Volume 1 by Daena Creel.
In addition to recipes, this charming book is filled with vintage ads, menus from Grace’s different novels, and delightful illustrations.
To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page no later than midnight (EDT) on Thursday, September 21.
The three winners will be announced on Friday, September 22. Good luck!
If you’d like to purchase your own copy of Daena’s book, click on the link below to go to Amazon.com:
You can learn more about Grace Livingston Hill’s life and books by visiting Daena’s website at GraceLivingstonHill.com.
When Isabella edited The Pansy magazine, she made sure each issue included (in addition to her own stories) a wide variety of content, such as essays on science, history, life in foreign countries, and biographies of famous people.
Her family members regularly contributed articles, anecdotes, stories, and poems.
Isabella’s husband, her son, her sister, and even her niece Grace Livingston (who, as Grace Livingston Hill, later became a best-selling author just like her aunt Isabella) all wrote poems for The Pansy.
The Giveaway
Today’s giveaway is an e-book of some of the best-loved poems from the pages of The Pansy magazine.
Sometimes soulful, sometimes charming or funny, Poems of Faith from The Pansy is the perfect read when you’re in the mood for a bit of whimsy or a quiet moment of reflection.
You can read Poems of Faith from The Pansy for Free!
Reviews and giveaways for Christian fiction and sweet, clean fiction. Bringing readers information on great stories and connecting authors with their readers.
Isabella Alden 