Historical facts, background information, and excerpts from Isabella’s books.
Faith and Love is now available in print! This exclusive collection of short stories by Grace Livingston Hill and her mother Marcia Livingston is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever print books are sold.
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In Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant, little Daisy Bryant loved beauty. Even at the tender age of eight she recognized that the home she lived in with her mother, brother and sister was far from beautiful.
The walls of the little cottage were not lathed and plastered; were not even painted; their weather-stained unsightliness had been among Daisy’s trials.
Little Daisy dreamed of covering those unattractive walls with pictures.
Mrs. Bryant laughed. “You dear little dreamer,” she said, “where do you suppose the pictures are to come from, and how much paste and time do you suppose it would take?”
“Oh, but I don’t mean all at once. Be a long, long time, you know; and take just a tiny teaspoonful of flour at a time; we could afford that, couldn’t we? When we found a real pretty picture anywhere, paste it up in a nice place, and in a g-r-e-a-t many months the walls would be covered.”
It was impossible not to laugh at the bright face and dancing eyes, and there was something so funny about it to Line and Ben, that they laughed loud and long.
Mrs. Bryant was the first to recover voice. “It is a pretty thought,” she said, “and I will certainly try to furnish the spoonful of flour for my share; but we have almost no chances for pictures, darling, and I’m afraid you will be old and gray before the walls are covered.”
“Well,” said Daisy cheerily, “then I will put on my spectacles and sit down and enjoy them.”
The first picture to be pasted to the wall was one Daisy’s brother found in a magazine a friend had given him. Magazines in 1890—the year Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant was published—often printed pictures and photographs that were suitable for framing.
In fact, many magazines encouraged readers to clip out pictures and frame them even though the images were in black and white.
Sometimes the images were simply of the latest fashions.
Sometimes the images were of famous people or events.
And other illustrations gave readers a window onto faraway places and the works of popular artists.
By 1910 some magazines began printing two-color pictures. And by 1920 many magazines featured pictures and advertisements in full color. Copies of the Old Masters or religious paintings were very collectable.
While other pictures illustrated places and lifestyles most people could only dream about.
Since magazine issues ranged in price from five to fifteen cents, they were an affordable source for pictures. Unfortunately for Daisy, even five cents was an unattainable sum. So she sacrificed her dream of having a beautiful wall of pictures; but by the end of the book, Daisy and the Bryants would find themselves surrounded by beauty and blessings of a very different kind.
You can read more about Daisy and her dreams in Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant. Click on the book cover to find out more.
As the wife of a minister, Isabella Alden was very familiar with her husband’s congregation. She wasn’t the type of minister’s wife who simply went to teas and receptions and other social events, and never got involved in anything related to the church. Not Isabella.
She was an “old-fashioned minister’s wife,” said her niece, Grace Livingston Hill:
She made calls on the parishioners, knew every member intimately, cared for the sick, gathered the young people into her home, making both a social and religious center for them with herself as leader and adviser; grew intimate with each personally and led them to Christ; became their confidante; and loved them all as if they had been her brothers and sisters.
Isabella’s experiences as a minister’s wife inspired many characters and events in her books. She wove her stories around real incidents and real people, their foibles and inconsistencies, and lessons learned.
Like the country congregation that couldn’t raise the funds needed to keep their church clean in Interrupted.
Or the woman in Aunt Hannah and Martha and John who placed a large donation in the offering plate to impress the congregation, only to slip into the church office later when no one was looking to demand her change because she didn’t really want to give the full amount.
And the Ladies’ Aid Society members who only donated pennies because they believed missionaries and others who did God’s work didn’t need nice things (this happened in a few of Isabella’s novels).
When it came to the subject of money, Isabella had heard all the arguments before. She knew why people preferred to spend their dollars on anything but God’s work. But she also knew her Bible, and believed its instructions about money were just as important as any other commandment.
Isabella was a strong believer in the Biblical concept of tithing, and she knew how important it was to teach children to tithe beginning at a young age. She believed that when we follow God’s instructions about money, we grow to trust God in other areas of our lives, as well.
She illustrated the point in her short story, “Pictures from Mrs. Pierson’s Life.” The story centers around a couple who ignore God’s instructions about money, and what their children learn by the parents’ actions.
“Pictures from Mrs. Pierson’s Life” first appeared in Mrs. Harper’s Awakening, published in 1881. You can read it here for free. Just click on the book cover to get started.
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Isabella wrote about money and the importance of tithing in many of her books, including:
Miss Priscilla Hunter (read it for free!)
Aunt Hannah and Martha and John
Household Puzzles and The Randolphs
Spun from Fact (read it for free!)
Although there was a nine-year age difference between Isabella and her older sister Marcia, they were as close as sisters could be.
They had a lot in common—they had the same sense of humor, they both married ministers, and they were both talented writers.
Marcia and Isabella co-wrote several novels together, including:
Aunt Hannah and Martha and John
John Remington, Martyr
By Way of the Wilderness
From Different Standpoints
Isabella and Marcia wrote some books while they lived together in the same house in Winter Park, Florida; and when miles and circumstances separated the sisters, they wrote some of their books “by mail.” What’s extraordinary is the way the sisters’ writing styles blended seamlessly so that it’s impossible to tell which sister wrote which sections of their books.
They were both tireless writers. In addition to novel writing, Marcia contributed stories and articles to The Pansy, which was Isabella’s magazine for children. And Marcia’s short stories for adults were regularly published in The Interior, a Christian magazine.
Marcia’s husband Charles was a minister who wrote his own weekly sermons, as well as theological papers. Like Marcia, he, too, wrote stories and articles for The Pansy.
Their daughter Grace Livingston Hill grew up in a home filled with creativity, a love of reading, and a strong work ethic. She learned the letters of the alphabet by clicking on the keys of her Aunt Isabella’s typewriter. She learned the art of writing a short story from her mother Marcia.
At an early age Grace discovered she could earn a living by her writing, just as her mother and aunt did. Her first book, A Chautauqua Idyl was published in 1887. Soon Grace joined her mother and her Aunt Isabella in creating inspiring, uplifting and memorable Christian fiction for women. Marcia encouraged Grace and often edited her manuscripts before Grace sent them off to her publisher.
Grace wrote over one-hundred novels, all of which remain popular today. Less popular are her short stories—not because they are any less well-written, but because they are more difficult to find. Her short stories appeared in magazines and newspapers in the early years of the 1900s and copies of those publications are rare finds today.
The same is true for stories written by Marcia Livingston. They were published in the 1890s in magazines that went out of business long ago, their records scattered or destroyed; only a few issues can be found in libraries and museum collections. Their scarcity makes them all the more precious.
A new, exclusive collection of those hard-to-find short stories by Grace Livingston Hill and Marcia Livingston is now available …
We’re giving away four copies of Faith and Love in e-book format to subscribers to this blog. The winners will claim their e-book through Amazon.
We’ll announce the winners on Friday, August 28. Good luck!
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Faith and Love is available at these e-book retailers:
When Isabella Alden wrote Aunt Hannah and Martha and John, she created the character of Martha Remington, a young bride who—through no fault of her own—had never been taught to cook and keep house.
Isabella herself was an excellent homemaker. Her niece, Grace Livingston Hill, wrote that her Aunt Isabella was “a marvelous housekeeper, knowing every dainty detail of her home to perfection; able to cook anything in the world just a little better than anyone else.”
Poor, Martha, however, couldn’t cook at all and her bridegroom, John, suffered through many meals that were overcooked, undercooked, sour, or salty.
Cooking in the late 1800s and early 1900s was truly a skill that was acquired after years of practice. A young woman stood a much better chance of learning to cook from an experienced housekeeper than she did if she tried to learn to cook on her own.
This was especially true because of the stoves and ovens that were available then. They lacked one essential feature we take for granted today: A thermostat.
Ranges at the turn of the 20th Century didn’t have any means for accurately detecting the temperature of their ovens or burners, and they had no dials or knobs to turn heat up or down. Cooks controlled the temperature of the oven and burners by the amount and type of fuel they fed the range. They had to rely on their experience and years of trial and error to determine whether an oven was the right temperature for baking a loaf of bread or roasting a shank of beef.
Cookbooks from the time included recipes with very general terms:
“Heat your oven to a satisfactory degree of heat.”
“Bake in a hot oven.”
“Bake in a quick oven for ten minutes.”
With such imprecise instructions, it’s no wonder an inexperienced cook like Martha was so bewildered in the kitchen, and served her husband so many meals that were almost inedible.
Luckily, Aunt Hannah detected the trouble and came to Martha’s rescue, not only as a teacher of the kitchen arts, but as a friend.
Under Aunt Hannah’s gentle tutelage, Martha Remington learned to be a good cook and housekeeper.
And as her confidence in the kitchen grew, so did Martha’s confidence in all areas of her life, as she matured into a caring and capable pastor’s wife.
You can find out more abou
t Isabella’s book, Aunt Hannah and Martha and John by clicking on the book cover.
It’s that time of year when students get ready to head back to school. Just as families today shop for back-to-school clothes, so did families in Isabella Alden’s books.
The opening scene of Doris Farrand’s Vocation describes Doris’s meager college wardrobe and her sister’s efforts to make Doris appear as fashionable as possible—even if it meant buying clothes on credit.
Doris’s sister thought going into a little bit of debt was preferable to allowing Doris to attend classes looking shabby. Credit was plentiful in 1905 when the book was published. Individual merchants often extended credit to customers and allowed people to buy “on account.”
Merchants enticed shoppers into their stores with window displays of back-to-school wardrobes. Newspaper columns and women’s magazines gave advice on how to stretch a family’s wardrobe budget and listed the essential wardrobe pieces every student must have.
At a minimum, Doris’s college wardrobe would have included three required pieces:
– a tailored suit
– an evening dress
– an everyday dress.
The style of Doris’s clothes would have been rather restrictive. Her skirts were made from yards of fabric and the hemlines hit just at her ankles. Her shirtwaists and dress bodices usually covered most of her arms and fitted high at the neckline.
Of course, no outfit was finished until it was properly accessorized with gloves, shoes and stockings.
The most important accessory was an appropriately-styled hat. Doris’s sister “was the milliner of the family.” She considered it her job to make Doris’s only hat over the best she could with bits of ribbons, since a new hat for Doris was simply not something the Farrand family could afford.
Even young students wore hats to school, as this 1915 ad for children’s hats illustrates:
The illustration shows how much hats had evolved; gone were the wide brims and large plumes that adorned hats when Doris was in school. By 1915 hats—as well as fashions in general—had changed considerably.
Many women’s magazines furnished patterns (indicated by the unique numbers shown beside each garment) that homemakers could order by mail at a cost of about ten cents. Sewing the outfits at home was often a less expensive option than buying outfits ready-made.
The illustration on the left shows a “serviceable play suit with plenty of pockets” for a little boy’s treasures. The outfit is completed with long hose and a hat.
Fashions for girls had evolved, too. Young girls’ skirts were shorter, although they retained the traditional high waists of previous years; and they wore simple shoes and socks instead of long hose and ankle boots.
Older girls and pre-teens abandoned their corsets for dropped waists and jumpers. Their skirts were significantly shorter, too, with hemlines hitting just below the knee.
When a girl reached her later teens, she transitioned to more mature “costumes.” As in Doris Farrand’s day, a tailored suit was essential for every young woman’s wardrobe as was an evening dress. This excerpt from a 1915 fashion article showed just how much a young woman could expect to pay for her wardrobe essentials.
Young women of college age had to keep up with the 1915 fashions, too. Dresses and suits were slimmer than those Doris Farrand wore; skirts were less voluminous and necklines were less confining.
And, of course, a fashionable hat was still an essential element of any college student’s ensemble:
This newspaper article showed how a college student in 1915 could build a complete wardrobe for less than $100.
Unfortunately for Doris, the family budget couldn’t be stretched to give Doris even the few pieces mentioned in the article above. She didn’t even own evening dress.
When Doris’s sister asked what she planned to wear to an important reception at the college, Doris replied, “My dress, of course!” She owned only one!
Isabella Alden considered The Hall of Philosophy one of the most beloved locations at Chautauqua Institution.
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The Hall of Philosophy—sometimes called the Hall in the Grove because of its location in idyllic St. Paul’s Grove—was an open-air structure that sat under a canopy of trees that shaded and cooled the Hall during the hot summer months. It was a favorite gathering place for Chautauquans, even when no lectures were held there.
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If you were a Chautauqua visitor, you could stand at the edge of the Hall of Philosophy and look out upon different views of the grounds. From one vantage point, you’d see the Hall of Christ and the spires of the different denominational chapels.
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From another direction you’d see gingerbread-trimmed cottages and inviting expanses of green lawns.
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The original Hall of Philosophy was designed by Bishop John Vincent for the Christian Literary and Scientific Circle (C.L.S.C.). Twenty years later, when it was discovered the building needed to be replaced in order to last for future generations, the C.L.S.C. lead a fund-raising campaign and raised the money needed to erect a new Hall of Philosophy in the same location.
When the new concrete floor was poured in 1905, it included 51 different mosaic tiles, each designed by a different C.L.S.C. class, beginning with the class of 1882 (the first class) and ending with the class of 1924. Each tile depicts the class year, name and logo.
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For instance, the first C.L.S.C. class of 1882 was called “The Pathfinders.” Their emblem was the nasturtium and their motto was “The truth shall make you free.”
The class of 1915 adopted the name “Jane Addams” and used the American laurel as their emblem. Their motto: “Life more abundant.”
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Isabella Alden was a member of the 1887 class; her fellow classmates honored her by naming their class the Pansy Class. They used the pansy flower as their emblem and “Neglect not the gift that is in thee” as their motto.
Isabella paid tribute to the Hall of Philosophy and her own experience with the C.L.S.C. in her novel The Hall in the Grove. The story centers around a diverse group of people who each spend a summer at Chautauqua for different reasons—and each end the summer changed by their experience. The Hall of Philosophy is almost another character in Isabella’s story, for it plays a prominent role in the different characters’ spiritual journeys. (You can click on the book cover to learn more about the novel.)
Thanks to the determination and rallying spirit of the members of the C.L.S.C. the Hall of Philosophy was rebuilt, and is still in use today.
This short video by Chautauqua Institution gives a brief history of the Hall of Philosophy and shows some examples of the C.L.S.C. class tiles:
There’s a new Isabella Alden Pinterest board for you to view: “Clothes Pansy’s characters might have worn” is a budding collection of clothing, jewelry, hats and shoes from the time period in which Isabella wrote her books.
This brown suit (from about 1880) might have been similar to the suit Marian Wilbur wore in Four Girls at Chautauqua.
And this delicate gown may remind you of the gown Flossy Shipley ruined in the rain on her first visit to Chautauqua.
You’ll also see several black gowns that Ruth Burnham might have worn (she never wore any other color) in the book Ruth Erskine’s Crosses.
You’ll find examples of traveling costumes, day dresses, tea gowns, and walking suits, as well as some jewelry, purses, and shoes to help you visualize Isabella’s beloved characters as you read her books. Click here to view Isabella’s Pinterest board now.
Isabella Alden was a great campaigner for the temperance movement. She had seen for herself the consequences of an unregulated alcohol industry. Alcoholic drinks in her time were often far more potent than commercial beer, wine and distilled liquor we’re used to today, making them much more addictive. Sometimes alcoholic beverages were laced with other substances, like cocaine; and alcohol was openly marketed to children.
This short video by documentary film maker Ken Burns describes the influence of liquor on America at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
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Isabella’s dear friend Theodosia Toll Foster (whose nom de plume was Faye Huntington) was another tireless worker for the cause of temperance. Many of her novels were written for publication by the National Temperance Society and described the impact of alcoholism on the lives of individuals and communities.
And in her own books, Isabella often wove stories around the impact alcoholism had on families. She and her sister Marcia Livingston co-authored the novel, John Remington, Martyr, which chronicled one man’s efforts to fight the power of the alcohol industry and its hold on society.
Isabella, Theodosia and Marcia, as well as Marcia’s daughter, Grace Livingston Hill, were active members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The W.C.T.U. began in 1874 as a “crusade” of 208 dedicated temperance workers.
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When Frances Willard was named the W.C.T.U.’s president in 1879, she inherited an organization comprised of several autonomous chapters with no unified action plan to achieve the group’s goal of reforming the distribution and sale of alcohol in America.
Up to that point, the organization was known for it crusades—bands of women visiting local saloons to pray and ask saloonkeepers to close their doors and stop selling spirits. For the most part, they were seen as teetotaling moral zealots.
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Frances Willard had a different vision for the organization. By profession she was a teacher. She was educated, dynamic, and persuasive; she used those talents to redefine the W.C.T.U. Knowing that America’s high rate of alcoholism was directly related to crime, sexual assault, poverty, and domestic violence, she redirected the organization to focus on social reform and political activism.
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She formed alliances with politicians, instilled a sense of sisterhood in W.C.T.U. members, and cultivated powerful and influential allies.
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Lewis Miller, co-founder of Chautauqua Institution and a multi-millionaire industrialist, was a staunch supporter of the W.C.T.U.; his wife Mary was one of the first members of the Ohio W.C.T.U., a well-organized and militant branch of the organization.
Their daughter Mina recalled how her mother, with other “dauntless women” visited saloons and pleaded with the male proprietors to close their doors. They were often subjected to insults and even had buckets of water thrown on them.
After Mina Miller married Thomas Edison, the great American inventor, she used her influence as “Mrs. Edison” to further the W.C.T.U.’s programs.
And what programs they were! W.C.T.U. members developed and taught temperance lessons to children in Sunday schools and visited drunkards in prison. They lobbied for free public kindergartens and prison reform. By 1889 W.C.T.U. chapters were operating nurseries, Sunday schools, homeless shelters, and homes for fallen women. Members supported labor reform, suffrage, disarmament, and the eight-hour work day.
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Isabella often wrote about the activities of the W.C.T.U. in her books. Most striking was her novel One Commonplace Day. In that story, a group of people come together on their own to help one family overcome the effects of alcoholism; and they employ many of the W.C.T.U. methods to do so.
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Isabella and Frances Willard often lectured together, speaking before different chapters of the Sunday School Assembly and at regional Chautauqua locations.
By the time Frances Willard passed away in 1898 the W.C.T.U. was an acknowledged political and social force in the United States. Under her leadership the organization united women from varied backgrounds, educated them and empowered them to form one of the strongest and most influential women’s organizations in American history.
In 1905 a statue of Frances Willard was erected in National Statuary Hall at the United States Capital in Washington D.C. Her statue was the first honoring a woman to be chosen for the National Statuary Hall Collection.
Would you like to learn more about Frances Willard and the W.C.T.U.? Click here to visit the organization’s website.
Click on this link to read more about the statue of Frances Willard in Statuary Hall at the United States Capital.
Grace Livingston Hill wrote a short biography of Frances Willard’s early years. Click here to read her 1909 article.
You can watch the full 90-minute Ken Burns documentary “A Nation of Drunkards” here:
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