Category: Isabella’s Books

Historical facts, background information, and excerpts from Isabella’s books.

The First Pansy of the Season

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“A plainly attired lady of medium hight [sic] wearing a brown dress and lace collar, was introduced to a large audience at the Case avenue Presbyterian church last evening as Mrs. G. R. Alden, or the first “Pansy” of the season after an unusually severe winter.”

Isn’t that a charming way to describe Isabella?

Sepia head and shoulders photograph of Isabella. She wears a dark-colored dress with long sleeves and embroidered flowers adorning the bodice, and a detachable lace color that buttons high on the throat. The lace is 3" to 4" deep, and hangs down into a jabot 4" to 5" long.
Photo of Isabella Alden about 1880 (age 39)

Those are the first lines of a newspaper article about a public reading she gave at a Cleveland church in 1885.

Isabella regularly drew large crowds whenever she appeared at an event, especially if there was a chance she might read one of her stories; and on this particular evening, she read chapters from her short story “Circulating Decimals.”

Cover of "Circulating Decimals" showing a young woman in a white dress from the early 1900s, and a white hat with red flowers. She is seated in a wooden chair in a garden and is reading a book.

Here’s the newspaper’s full description of the event:

“PANSY” ON CHURCH SOCIETIES. Mrs. Alden and the Adelbert College Glee Club Entertain an Audience. A plainly attired lady of medium hight [sic] wearing a brown dress and lace collar, was introduced to a large audience at the Case avenue Presbyterian church last evening as Mrs. G. R. Alden, or the first “Pansy” of the season after an unusually severe winter. Mrs. Alden, who is well known in the literary world as “Pansy” the Sunday school workers’ favorite authoress, read several chapters of her republished book “Circulating Decimal,” to the great delight of her hearers. She is a pleasing and natural reader, and knows how to interest an audience. She read of the trials and tribulations of Sunday school societies, described the efforts of the young ladies to “get up” a church fair and the cantata of “Esther,” how they quarreled over the leading parts and how they netted the enormous sum of $19.02 In the course of the evening the Adelbert college glee club entertained the audience with several excellent selections, capitally sung, among which were “Nellie was a Lady,” “Way Down Upon the Suwanee river” and “George Washington.”
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 15, 1885

You can read Isabella’s story “Circulating Decimals” for free!

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Just click here to download your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.

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Advice to Readers about Dissatisfied Lives

Published on by Isabella Alden5 Comments

For many years Isabella wrote a popular advice column for a Christian magazine. She used the column to answer readers’ questions on a wide variety of topics.

This question came to Isabella in a letter from a woman named Jessie:

What is the meaning of the Bible verse: “He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness”?

I am not satisfied and I don't know what I want. I have asked God to help me find out, but I don't get help. I try to do what I think is right, but I seem to be as badly off today as I was yesterday. The soul hunger is still there, and I don't know where to look in the Bible, or out of it. How can I satisfy this hunger, or this longing for something that I haven't got? Can you help me? 
          Jessie

Here is Isabella’s advice:

I think the Bible verse you quoted means exactly what it says; it is the out-pouring of a glad heart in thankful song because God has made good his promise.

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

That is the promise, and there are multitudes who can testify to its truth. The first step in securing its fulfillment to the individual soul is to believe it unquestioningly.

As to the reasons why some Christians (who think they are hungry for righteousness) continue from day to day to be “as bad off today as they were yesterday,” they are various. There is a state of longing, of unrest, of desire for something—one hardly knows what—that has very little to do with God. It merely represents a dissatisfied heart that thinks itself willing to take God, or anything else, in order to find happiness; but that is not hunger for righteousness.

The Bible verses quoted have to do, I think, with those who have already had an actual Christian experience that abides. They have settled it once and for all that they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ in covenant relations. That is, they have seen themselves as sinners, and Christ as the only Savior, and have definitely accepted him as their substitute. They recognize that they are not their own, that they have been “bought, with a price,” and have ratified the transaction; that henceforth their time, their talents, their possessions are his—lent to them for use, but absolutely under his control. Such an experience leaves no room for dissatisfaction and vague unrest.

Their days begin with prayer, real prayer—a definite commitment of each hour and each bit of work, each responsibility, each “thorn in the flesh,” each trifle to God, asking and expecting his minute and continuous attention.

Old photo of a woman kneeling in her bedroom in front of her dressing table, her hands are clasped together in prayer.

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Sometime during the progress of their day there is definite Bible study. Not simply the reading of a few verses in succession, or scattered here and there, without giving careful attention to their meaning, but a real feeding of the mind:

“Whose word is this that I am reading? Is it my Lord’s?”

“Just what does he say here, and how?”

“What part of this is assuredly for me? Is it a promise? Can I claim it? Have I done so, definitely?

“Is there a direction here? Am I obeying it?”

“Is the meaning obscure?

“Am I using my best endeavors to find out just what he meant me to get from this portion?

“Has he explained it somewhere else in my Bible?”

Remember that he will work no miracles for you except those of which you stand in need. He has given you the book and a capacity for studying it; he will no more do the studying for you than he will make the bread in your kitchen while you fold your hands and wait for it.

I speak intentionally of daily Bible study, remembering, as I use the phrase, that there are some lives so crowded with what are known to be duties, that not even a small portion of their day can be claimed for what they call actual study.

Old photo of a Bible on a table. Beside it is an old oil wick lamp made of etched glass.

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In those situations there is a delightful and helpful “study,” which one dear saint calls “feeding upon a Bible verse.” Take a little verse, or a piece of a verse, into the duties and perplexities and pin-pricks of the busiest day, and it will often prove a veritable armor.

Think of going into the thick of a Monday morning with a cantankerous parent to appease, with a wide-awake and deeply interested baby at the mischievous age to watch, with two or three heedless and belated children to be buttoned and brushed and smoothed and sent happily off to school; with door bells and telephone bells to answer, with luncheon to manage for seven or eight persons, with a tardy announcement that a friend is coming for luncheon and to spend the afternoon with the neighbor next door running in to borrow, and chat and hinder, with the thousand and one besetments of a wife, and mother, and housekeeper. Think of her as taking hold of all these duties, freshly armored with the verse:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as man can bear; God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able: but will, with the temptation, make also the way of escape that ye may be able to endure it.

You can imagine one’s temptations to the hasty word, to undue fault-finding, to feeling sure that she simply cannot endure any more of this.

“No,” says the Word upon which she is feeding, “you must not say that. God will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able. He says so. He knows the temptations; he will make the way of escape. He says so.”

Did he mean her? Oh, yes, indeed! He had her in mind. “Neither pray I for these alone,” said Jesus, “but for them also which shall believe on me.” That includes her, and she knows that “he ever liveth to make intercession for her.”

Who is going to estimate the effect on the world of that day’s soul-food, as the busy daughter, wife and mother, with quiet face and sweet, low voice, meets and endures her multiform temptations with the armor that her Lord has supplied!

Such Bible reading is Bible study reduced to living. Such a life will grow; will feel more intimate acquaintance with the Lord today than it had yesterday, more joy in his service.

Such a soul will learn to long after fellowship with Jesus Christ, and will daily be given more and more of his felt presence.

Such a soul will “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” not in a sickly, sentimental, dissatisfied way, but with an eagerness and a hopefulness born of experience, and an experience that will refuse to be satisfied with anything less.

I believe real soul-hunger to be a pleasant experience: as when one with a healthy, normal appetite sits down to a well-filled table, knowing that he is very hungry, and knowing, also, that his hunger will be satisfied.

What do you think of Isabella’s advice?

Have you ever tried her method of memorizing a single Bible verse to carry with you throughout the day?

Isabella based some of her novels on the advice she gave here about “feeding upon a Bible verse.”

In Frank Hudson’s Hedge Fence, for example, Frank learns that memorizing one Bible verse a day, and keeping it top of mind all day long, can make a big difference in his outlook and his walk with God. You can get your copy of the book by clicking here.

She used a variation of the method in A Dozen of Them, where a boy named Joseph promised his sister he would choose one Bible verse a month and make it a rule to live by. You can read the book for free by clicking here.

Our Fashion Plate

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Isabella was 26 years old in 1867, when a new women’s magazine called Harper’s Bazar was launched in America.

Harper’s Bazar was different from other women’s magazines—like Godey’s Lady’s Book—because it was published weekly, rather than monthly. Its content was exclusively directed toward women. Each issue featured stories, decorating advice, recipes, instruction on home economics, needlework patterns, and, of course, fashion plates.

Illustrated cover of Harper's Bazar shows a woman in a white gown with black horizontal stripes at waist and hem. She wears a black and white fascinator-style bonnet. She stands at a metal railing atop a rock lookout. A text box reads, "A weekly journal of fashion devoted to every interest of woman and the home."
An 1896 cover of Harper’s Bazar, from the New York Public Library.

The fashion plates detailed the latest clothing trends from Paris and New York. By the late 1890s, most issues of the magazine featured hand-colored engravings of gowns, coats, bonnets, shoes, and just about every other article of clothing a lady could imagine.

An 1891 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a brown gown with a high neck and long sleeves puffed at the shoulders. The neckline, wrist cuffs, and floor-length skirt are trimmed in ribbons. She carries a folding fan and wears a brown bonnet adorned with large ribbon bows. The other woman wears a blue dress, also featuring a high collar and long sleeves with puffs at the shoulder. Her gown is decorated with lace at the neck, bodice, and cuffs. The floor-length skirt is draped in front with bows; in back the skirt is pleated from waist to hem, where more lace decorates the skirt.
An 1891 fashion plate

The magazine had a great influence over women in all walks of life. Isabella wrote about that influence in her novel Divers Women, when she described Kitty, who worked as a clerk in a dry-goods store and devoted almost all of her salary to recreating the fashions she saw in magazines:

Miss Kitty Brown was a tall slender girl with a very small waist, and a pale, rather pretty face. She was gotten up in the style of the last fashion plate. She wore trails and high heels, and bows, and frizzes, and puffs, and jewelry, and a stylish little hat with a long plume. She had a sky-blue silk dress with ruffles, and pleatings, and ribbons innumerable, and a white Swiss muslin and a pink muslin that floated about her like soft clouds.

An 1894 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a green skirt, green open jacket and white shirtwaist. Pearl-like trim is attached to the high collar, the lapels and cuffs of the jacket, as well as the hem of the skirt. She carries a parasol and wears a small green bonnet. The other woman wears a pink gown with high collar and floor-length skirt. The sleeves have a large puff from shoulder to elbow; from elbow to wrist is lace. The bodice has a large collar that is fastened at the bosom with a large artificial flower. The skirt has large vertical panels of white lace trim that are attached to the skirt at varying heights. More large panels of lace trim encircle the hem.
An 1894 fashion place

In creating Kitty Brown, and other female characters, Isabella often conveyed the message that ladies who dressed as Kitty did were uneducated, lacking in taste, and prone to take fashion to extremes.

Isabella objected to seeing women dressed in an “accumulation of silk, and lace, and flounce, and ruffle, and fold, and double plaits, and single plaits, and box plaits, and double box plaits, and fringe, and gimp, and ribbons, and bows.” That’s how she described the trends that were fashionable when she wrote her novel, The King’s Daughter.

An 1896 fashion plate, featuring a colored illustration of two women modeling clothes. One woman is dressed in a brown gown with a plain skirt. The bodice has a high neck trimmed with lace. At the shoulders are a large, stiff panels of fabric that extend the gown's shoulder line horizontally. Below the panels are large puff sleeves that extend from the shoulders to below the elbows. The remaining sleeve from below the elbows to the wrists are fitted and adorned with lace. The bodice has a wide lace trim above the bosom; vertical lace panels trim the lower bodice to the waist, where there is a large peplum made of lace and other trimmings. The other woman wears an evening dress of light green. The bodice has a low neckline and lace trim below the bosom. The shoulders are adorned with bunches of small purple flowers. The puff sleeves are large and end just below the elbows. Narrow and deep rows of lace trim the hem of the floor-length skirt. The woman carries an ostrich-plume evening fan and wears long white gloves that reach allmost to her elbow.
An 1896 fashion plate

Later in the same book, she sympathized with the many layers of fabric and trim the fashion magazines required “one poor little suffering body to carry around with her.”

She even wrote a brief article for The Pansy magazine about women’s slavery to fashion—an article she flavored it with just a touch of shade:

Our Fashion Plate

Fashion, you know, is a queer thing. It keeps changing and changing without regard to taste, or even to sense, one would think; and as we are fond of getting fashions from abroad, I present you with the picture of two ladies in full court dress. They are from Bombay, which is certainly a large and important enough place for us to give attention to their style of dress.

Woodcut engraving of two women standing in front of the high wall with beautiful carvings in the stone. They are dressed in traditional clothing of India. On their forearms they wear large cuff bracelets; their feet are bare.

You will notice that they have taken special pains with their embroidery and jewelry. I doubt whether we could match the bracelets in this country, in size, at least. But what about the feet! How should you like a fashion that would banish all the pretty kid boots, and scarlet, and navy-blue, and brilliant plaid stockings, and oblige us to dress just in our “skin and toes” as a certain little miss put it? Oh, well, there is really no telling what we may come to. I have so much faith in our dear American people that I believe they would follow like martyrs in the bare-footed line, if the next orders from Paris should direct it. Yes, and the little girls would lay aside their kid boots and lovely stockings with a sigh indeed, but they would do it.

As to the bracelets, judging from the size which some ladies and even a few little misses wear now, I am not sure but we could put these large ones on without a sigh; that is, if they cost enough money. Meantime, however, I am rather glad that we don’t live in Bombay. Aren’t you?

What do you think of Isabella’s opinions about fashion?

Do you think that women (and men) pay too much attention to fashion styles and trends?

You can read more about Isabella’s novels mentioned in this post by clicking on the covers below:

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Pansy’s NaNoWriMo

Published on by Isabella Alden8 Comments

If you’re a writer—or know someone who is—you’re probably aware that the month of November is all about novel writing.

Every November writers from around the world join on-line writing communities (like NaNoWriMo and The King’s Daughters’ Writing Camp) where they record their efforts to write a novel in thirty days. Participants encourage each other, write together, share lessons learned, and talk about the challenges they face.

The most common challenge writers share in their on-line posts is how hard it is to find time to write every day. Many writers have full-time jobs, or small children, or other pressures that make it difficult to write a few paragraphs in thirty days, to say nothing of writing a full-length novel.

Old black and white photo of a young woman about 1910 seated at a desk, her hands on the keys of a typewriter. Behind her a giant clock on the wall shows three o'clock.

Yet, that problem isn’t a new one for twenty-first century writers. In the nineteenth century Isabella Alden faced the very same difficulty as she juggled her writing career with speaking engagements, household tasks, church duties, editing deadlines, and demands from fans and acquaintances.

In 1906, when Isabella was writing Ruth Erskine’s Son, she described a typical writing day that will probably sound very familiar to writers everywhere:

She began her day at seven o’clock by dressing and performing her daily household chores; but even before she finished making beds and doing laundry, she was interrupted by a summons to morning prayers and breakfast.

Old black and white photo of a woman circa 1915, dressed in long-sleeved, high collar blouse and long skirt, seated at a table, typing on a typewriter. Beside her is an large wooden roll-top desk. Behind her is a tufted leather bench.

After that she cleared the breakfast table, put the dining room in order, and went back to bed-making, dusting, laundry, and other tasks.

Then the postman made his delivery, which included a long-awaited letter, so the entire family was summoned to hear Isabella read the letter aloud.

Other delivered letters included:

  • A request from a woman who wanted Isabella to read her manuscript,
  • A man asking permission to read one of Isabella’s stories in his church,
  • Another woman requesting Isabella speak at a temperance meeting,
  • A little girl wanting Isabella to spend an evening with her Sunday-school class,
  • And one from her editor asking her to please write her magazine columns a little faster!

By 11:00 Isabella was finally seated at her typewriter, “struggling with an unusually hard problem in the life of that much enduring woman, Ruth Erskine Burnham,” when she was interrupted yet again.

Her sister Julia (who was living with the Aldens at the time) was busy in the kitchen making a ginger cake and she wanted Isabella to taste it. Of course Isabella did not complain about such a delicious interruption!

Color illustration of a woman about 1915 seated at a wooden desk, typing on an old-style typewriter.

Back at her work once again, she heard the door bell ring with a delivery.

A few minutes later came a vendor at the door selling “choice spinach, some delicious cauliflower, some fine oranges, and some splendid green peas.”

After dealing with the vendor, she wrote: “I am seated again with Ruth Erskine only to hear, ‘Belle!’ from the front stairway.”

It was her sister Mary volunteering to “fix my scrap basket for me, if I will find the materials for her.”

Old hand-colored photograph of a woman about 1915 wearing a blue dress with long-sleeves, high neckline, and floor-length skirt. she is seated at a small table on which is a red tablecloth and a typewriter.

By the time Isabella returned to her typewriter, she realized the entire morning was gone and it was time for lunch.

After lunch it was time to clear the table, and on entering the kitchen, Isabella discovered Julia had made much more than a ginger cake. She had busily baked “mince pies and apple pies, and a million little ginger cakes in patty tins” as well as five loaves of “splendid bread.”

All of those delicious items resulted in a great number of dishes to wash. Isabella wrote:

“I wash, and wash, and WASH; and scour the sink and clear off shelves and refrigerator and empty more dishes, and sweep the floors, and wash seven dish towels.”

And just as she was hanging her dish towels to dry, “the clock strikes four!”

Determined to write, Isabella went back to her desk, only to be interrupted by the doorbell, then by her husband asking “What do I want from downtown?”

At five o’clock she had a long conversation with a college student who was “consumed with fear that she has not passed” a class of which Isabella’s son Dr. Raymond Alden was the professor. The student made a special request of Isabella:

“Will I, his mother—for whom, they say he will do anything in the world [according to the student]—intercede for her and explain to him how it was? And then for the eleventh time she proceeds to tell me how things were.”

By the time that conversation ended, it was six o’clock and time for dinner. At eight o’clock Isabella wrote:

“I am seated again, not with Ruth Erskine, but giving heart and brain to that explanatory letter which is to move the hard heart of Professor Alden.”

“That being done, Satan enters into me, and instead of working, I write a letter to my beloved sister Marcia three thousand miles away—and then, good night, I’m gone to bed!”

These were—as Isabella called them—“the snares which lie across my path” when she was supposed to be writing.

Does Isabella’s account sound familiar to you?

Have you ever pledged to write—or read, or craft, or exercise—only to be interrupted or have competing priorities intrude on your time?

By the way, Isabella did finish writing Ruth Erskine’s Son, and it was published the following year. You can get your copy of Ruth Erskine’s Son by clicking on the book cover below:

A New Luxury

Published on by Isabella Alden5 Comments

Isabella was always interested in new inventions that came her way. When typewriters first came on the market, she began using one to write her stores. She even featured a typewriter in one of her novels (you can read more about that here).

And when her fingers tired from typing, she used dictation equipment and hired a stenographer to transcribe her spoken words into typed pages.

Black and white illustration of a man wearing a business suit seated in a chair in front of a small table. On the table is a dictation machine, which has a speaking tube the man is holding up to his mouth. Near the feet of the table is a treadle, which the man operates with one foot.
An early wax cylinder phonograph for dictation, 1897 (from Wikicommons).

Add to her love of innovation the fact that she was also very social-minded and had a keen interest in bettering people’s lives, and you can understand her interest in a new trend in health and hygiene that began in the late 1890s.

During the majority of Isabella’s life, indoor plumbing was a luxury for most Americans. Only the wealthy could afford to install bathrooms in their homes.

Design for an 1888 bathroom. Credit: New York Public Library Digital Collections.

By contrast, poor residents in large cities lived in tenement buildings that often had only a single source of water; that meant residents had to carry water (sometimes up several flights of stairs) to their apartments in order to bathe or even wash their hands.

Color illustration of a woman seated in a wicker chair and wearing the dress and hairstyle of about 1910. Across her lap is a large towel and she is holding a baby over a wash tub on the floor in front of her. The baby kicks water onto a little girl seated on the floor near the wash tub. Another little girl standing behind the tub holds the baby's hand. A small dog scurries away from the water being splashed in his direction.
“Baby’s Bath” by Arthur J. Elsely

But in the 1890s that began to change. By that time most great cities of the world had implemented public baths. London, Paris, Vienna, and Rome had spacious and magnificent buildings devoted to the purpose of bathing. Isabella’s home state of New York took notice, and began devoting attention to the matter of making bathing facilities available to all citizens, especially the poor.

The New York Board of Health worked with New York City officials to develop plans for a public bath house to be opened in Manhattan. The design included waiting rooms for men and boys, and a separate waiting room for women.

An 1897 design illustration for a New York public bath house. The stone building is two stories tall with a colonnade on the first floor and a balcony on the second. Both floors have several floor-to-ceiling windows.

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More importantly, the design featured an entirely new concept: Rain-baths.

Isabella like this new idea so much, she wrote about it in her magazine, The Pansy, and described the concept to her readers:

One who wishes a bath can set the machinery in motion, and stand under a warm rain, rubbing himself as much as he pleases; using plenty of soap, at first, and then showering off without it.

The water thus used flows away through pipes prepared for it, and without having any bath tub to clean, or water to empty, the bather can dress himself and step out into the world fresh and clean, leaving the room in order for the next one. This has all been planned for the benefit of those who have not homes of their own, with bath rooms and all conveniences.

Black and white photograph of rows of shower stalls with doors.
Shower stalls in a Boston Public Bath House 1898.

Having seen for herself the tenements and slums in major American cities such as New York, Isabella was well aware that there were few opportunities, if any, for city residents to bathe on a regular basis.

1908 black and white photo of about thirty women and girls standing in line to enter a New York City bath house.
Women and girls in line at a New York City bath house, 1908.

She also knew—having taught homemaking classes at Chautauqua—the health benefits of maintaining a clean body and a clean home. It was natural, then, for her to embrace this new plan for showers in public baths, especially since the facilities would be offered for free to anyone who wanted to use them.

Old photograph of about thirty young boys waiting in a room. Some are seated on benches along the wall, while others are standing in a line taking direction from a porter who is pointing at them, while five boys leaving the waiting room climb a staircase to the the baths.

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She ended her article in The Pansy by reminding her readers about the blessing the new bath houses would be:

I wonder if any Pansy knows what a luxury a warm bath is, when one is tired and soiled with the wear of the day? I am actually acquainted with some Pansies who weep when they are called upon to come in and have their baths! I venture to say that [the children of New York] are more than willing to wait for their turn in the bath room.

[Credit for the two photos of Boston’s Public Baths: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Social Museum Collection.]

New Free Read: The Trained Nurse

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Many of Isabella’s stories feature characters on the lookout for opportunities to share the Gospel. In this month’s free read, a sensible teenager does exactly that.

Miss Winnie Holden is just beginning her career in nursing, but she is committed to healing her patients’ souls as well as their bodies. But when the doctor orders Winnie keep her elderly patient from becoming excited in any way, she wonders how she will ever be able to learn whether the dear man she’s been caring for is a Christian.

You can read “The Trained Nurse” 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 “My Computer” option to receive an email with a version you can read, print, and share with friends.

Pansy Reads a Mystery Story

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In 1895 Isabella and her family were living in May’s Landing, New Jersey, where her husband, Reverend Gustavus Alden, had charge of the Presbyterian Church.

While her husband was busy with his responsibilities, Isabella paid an early September visit to her hometown of Gloversville, New York.

Her son Raymond (age 22 at the time) and adopted daughter Frances (age 3) accompanied her.

The residents of Gloversville welcomed Isabella back with open arms, and—as they often did—they invited her to speak at one of their assemblies. The evening of Tuesday, September 17 was decided upon, and the local newspaper promoted the event:

Newspaper Clipping: "A Popular Author in Town." Mrs. G. R. Alden, better known to most readers by her nom de plume "Pansy," is, with her son and daughter, visiting her cousin, Mrs. E. A. Spencer, at 38 First avenue. Mrs. Alden is the author of a large number of books, chiefly for the Sunday school, which have commanded a large sale and are very popular with both old and young. It is quite natural for the people of Gloversville to take a just pride in her success, as this was her former home and it was while she was a resident here that her first stories were written. At the request of the officers of the Presbyterian Home Mission society of this city, Mrs. Alden has written a new story suitable for a public reading and will read the same for the benefit of that society in the Presbyterian church next Tuesday evening the seventeenth. It is hoped Mrs. Alden will receive a heart reception from her old friends.

The evening began with musical selections, then Isabella took the stage to “an outburst of applause.” She read one her stories, which the newspaper reported was titled “Miss Hunter.”

You may already be familiar with “Miss Hunter.” The character of Miss Priscilla Hunter was one of Isabella’s favorites, and she appeared in four of Isabella’s stories:

Miss Priscilla Hunter

People Who Haven’t Time and Can’t Afford It

The Man of the House

One Commonplace Day

But each of these stories and novels were published well before 1895, and the newspaper reported that Isabella read a brand new story, written specifically for the occasion, that featured a character named Miss Hunter. The newspaper account of the evening noted that the story was “interesting and kept the close attention of the audience,” but gave no additional details about the story.

Newspaper clipping: "Pansy's" Reading The Presbyterian church was filled last evening by an audience who had gathered to listen to the reading of an original missionary story by Mrs. G. R. Alden, who writes under the nom de plume of "Pansy." The exercises opened with an organ voluntary by Mrs. Whitney, after which Miss Clara Gardner rendered a solo. Mrs. Alden's appearance followed shortly and she was greeted with an outburst of applause. The story, which was entitled "Miss Hunter," was very interesting and kept the close attention of the audience throughout. The reading was given for the benefit of the Young Ladies' Missionary Society of the Presbyterian church, and the proceeds netted were very satisfactory.

On Thursday morning, September 19, Isabella left Gloversville and headed back to her home in New Jersey.

Newspaper clipping: Mrs. G. R. Alden, "Pansy," who has been visiting Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Spencer, returned to her home at May's Landing, N. J., this morning. She was accompanied by her son and daughter.

She also left us with questions: What was the story she read aloud to the audience at the Presbyterian church? Is there another Pansy story about “Miss Hunter” that has yet to be found?

Until the mystery can be solved, you can read more about the fictional character of Miss Priscilla Hunter—and the stories we she appeared in—by clicking here.

You can also click here to read about Isabella’s charming hometown of Gloversville, New York, and the business her father had there.

Fantastic Cures for What Ails You

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Isabella Alden was no stranger to illness. In her personal life she suffered from chronic health issues. In her novels, her characters fought a variety of ailments, from head colds and sore throats, to broken bones and crippling back injuries.

In her novel Jessie Wells Isabella wrote about a “molasses and ginger cure” to ward off cough and fever. It was suggested to Jessie by her father, a physician. (You can read more about it here.)

Vintage cartoon of a woman about 1910 carrying a baby in one arm and a large suitcase in her other hand. The suitcase is labeled "Medicine Chest. Soothing Syrup. Peppermint. Jamaica Ginger. Paregoric."

Although the molasses cure was based on an old folk medicine recipe, it was actually beneficial; the ginger helped suppress a cough and the molasses soothed the throat.

Like Dr. Wells, many physicians in those days treated patients with folk medicine cures for ailments ranging from the common cold to the universal finger wart.

Vintage illustration of a doctor visiting a little girl sick in bed. He holds her hand and speaks kindly to her.

Isabella availed herself of some of those folk remedies in her personal life. To cure her chronic headaches she underwent a “water cure.” Physicians wrapped her body in wet blankets and allowed them to dry in place. They believed the process would draw harmful toxins from her body, thereby curing her headaches. (You can read more about it here.)

Vintage illustration of man in bed. a woman in nursing cap and apron stands beside him, combing his hair from his forehead while holding a mirror out for him to see.

There were folk remedies for every possible ailment, including dry lips, rattlesnake bites, poison ivy, measles, diphtheria and sties.  Here are a few:

The lining of a chicken gizzard is good for stomach trouble.

A drop of skunk’s oil will cure a cold.

To treat a wart, squeeze the red juice from a freshly picked beet leaf on it every day.

A drop of turpentine on the tongue every day will keep all disease away.

Vintage illustration of a doctor wrapping a bandage around a woman's arm as she rests in a chair with a pillow behind her.

The remedies were handed down from mother to daughter, from doctor to patient. Some old-time cures persisted until the Twentieth Century; generations of American children wore a piece of flannel (usually red) around their throats after drinking home-made cough syrups. In some areas of the U.S. it was a common practice well into the 1950s.  

Some folk remedies had no legitimacy, yet they worked because the patients believed they would work.

Victorian era illustration of a sick man in bed. A woman wearing nursing cap and apron stands at the foot of the bed hear a table on which is a bowl and a medicine bottle.

Other cures sounded strange, but had a scientific basis, like this one:

To cure an abscess or infected cut, apply a poultice of moldy bread and water twice each day.

In this instance, the poultice probably worked because the moldy bread essentially served as a home-grown form of penicillin.

Victorian era illustration of a seated woman holding a little girl in her lap. Before them kneels a doctor who holds a cup to the child's lips. In the background stand worried family members.

In our twenty-first century America, many of the old home-grown medicines have gone by the wayside. Luckily, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has a large collection of stories, letters, research essays, photos, and voice recordings about American folk medicine that helps us understand how Isabella, her family, neighbors and friends dealt with illness and injuries. You can visit the LOC’s website by clicking here.

Does your family have a story about folk medicine cures that did (or didn’t) work?

Do you have a favorite home remedy that has been handed down from generation to generation in your family?

Summer at Monteagle

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Now that summer is here and the temperatures are climbing, do you ever find yourself wondering what people did before air conditioning? Isabella hints at the answer in some of her stories, when a few of her lucky fictional characters got to leave their hot, humid city homes for cooler locations, such as beaches or mountains.

Isabella knew of which she wrote. She frequently spent her summers at Chautauqua Institution in New York, where she could enjoy the lake and cool breezes; and in Florida, where she had a large family home in Winter Park, and a smaller cottage in Defuniak Springs.

Then, in the summer of 1883 Isabella traveled to Tennessee, where she was one of the first visitors to the newly-opened Monteagle Sunday-school Assembly.

The cover of an 1893 pamphlet about Monteagle. Click on the image to see the entire pamphlet.

Monteagle was situated on 100 acres of land atop a mountain in Tennessee’s Cumberland range. Its location quickly made it a favorite resort for people from all over the American south.

Antique postcard showing the view looking west from atop the Cumberland Mountains

Bishop John Heyl Vincent, one of the co-founders of the original Chautauqua Institution of New York, visited Monteagle, too. He hailed it for supplying “recreation for tired men, women and children by gathering them on the mountain top where pure air and good music and earnest lectures would rest and entertain them.”

A portion from Bishop Vincent’s interview with The Tennessean about Monteagle, published May 10, 1883.

In many ways Monteagle Assembly was very similar to its northern cousin. Like Chautauqua it initially began as a training convention for Sunday-school teachers. In its early days Monteagle was just as rustic as Isabella described the early days of the New York assembly in Four Girls at Chautauqua. Tents provided the only sleeping accommodations, the dining hall had few dishes and cutlery, and lectures and sermons were held out of doors at the whim of Mother Nature.

Even the offices of the Monteagle Chautuaqua Literary and Scientific Circle were first housed in a modest tent until a permanent building for the C.L.S.C. could be erected.

An artist’s rendering of the proposed C.L.S.C. office building at Monteagle Assembly.

But Monteagle did not stay rustic for long. The assembly planned to erect an amphitheatre, a hotel, a dining hall, a library, meeting halls and classrooms.

In 1883 the organizers published their ambitious plan for the property in the local newspaper. (You can click on the map to see a larger version.)

An 1883 drawing of the proposed layout for the Monteagle Sunday-School Assembly Grounds, published in The Tenneseean on May 10, 1883.

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The amphitheatre that was ultimately built was modeled after the Grand Opera House of Paris and could hold 2,000 people.

Early photograph of the Monteagle Assembly amphitheatre.

The designers also included plenty of room for charming cottages, colorful gardens, and rambling walking paths.

Photo of a gazebo set under the trees near a walking path.
A pretty gazebo at Monteagle

There’s no record to tell us how many times Isabella visited Monteagle; but we do know she enjoyed the place so much, she published a novel about it in 1886, titled simply, Monteagle.

Image of the cover of Monteagle by Isabella Alden

In her story, city girl Dilly West—whose health suffered terribly because of hot summer tenement living conditions in the city—blossomed when she had the chance to go to Monteagle.

When asked what she liked most about Monteagle Assembly, Dilly immediately credited the fresh mountain air:

“Why, I fancy everything; the trees, and the flowers, and the birds, and the lovely breeze. There wasn’t ever any breeze in the city; at least, there never came any down where we lived. It was just like an oven all the time; it makes me feel faint to think how hot it must be there this morning; and only see how the curtains blow here!”

Through Dilly’s story Isabella was able to describe the beauty of Monteagle’s location. Dilly wrote home to her father to describe her hike up to the top of Table Mountain to see the sunset:

Father, I do just wish I could tell you about it! All gold, and crimson, and purple mountains all around, and red streaks away up into the sky, and castles in the sky made of glory color, and angels hurrying around to get ready for the sun to come home; that is the way it seemed, you know.

Dilly described other experiences in her letters home, including the things she learned on nature walks, at lectures in the amphitheater, and—most importantly—during Sunday-school classes:

Dear father, something very wonderful has come to me; I decided yesterday that I would belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Isabella wrote those words she knew Dilly’s fictional experience was similar to the real-life experiences many visitors had at Monteagle.

In fact, Monteagle Sunday School Assembly was so successful, it remains a thriving Chautauqua community today!

You can find out more about Monteagle, their programs and events by clicking here.

Or click here to take a look at their latest newsletter that describes the many activities, lectures, Bible studies and sermons they have to offer.

You can find out more about Isabella’s novel Monteagle by clicking here.

Have you ever visited Monteagle or a similar summer assembly? Please share your experience!

Free Read: Elizabeth’s Anniversary Week

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Isabella lived during a time when young men and women followed very strict social rules. For example, a gentleman could not speak to or even correspond with a woman without her permission; and often, the young woman couldn’t give permission without first consulting with her parents.

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In her 1898 novella “Elizabeth’s Anniversary Week” Isabella illustrated how those societal rules could end up causing difficulties, misunderstandings, and a lot of heartache.

Every September the Brockton family—aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings—gather to celebrate birthdays. The time-honored tradition should bring joy to all who attend, but Mrs. Brockton can’t help but notice her cherished daughter Elizabeth is far from happy about the annual event. In fact, she’s beginning to suspect some sickness has befallen Elizabeth to cause her to be so melancholy. But Elizabeth has a secret, one she has been trying hard to conceal from everyone, especially her mother.

You can read “Elizabeth’s Anniversary Week” for free!

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