Isabella Alden was a prolific writer of Christian stories and novels for children and adults. We’ve compiled a list of 213 of her titles (which you can see here) and she may have written even more!
To celebrate Isabella’s beloved stories, here’s a word search puzzle for you, created from the titles of her books.
Choose how you want to play:
To play online, click here. Then, click and drag to reveal each listed book title. You can play the online puzzle until September 30.
Once you’ve completed the puzzle, be sure to leave a comment to tell us how you liked it, and to be entered in this week’s drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Card.
Have fun !
This post is part of our Blogiversary Celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card!
We’ll announce the winner on Friday, September 14.
This short story by Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill, first appeared in a Christian magazine in 1917.
In “A Journey of Discovery” Louise Hasbrouck knows what everyone expects of her. She just received an offer of marriage from Halsey Carstairs, one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Louise should feel honored and happy; instead she feels restless and anxious to talk to her old friend, Cecilia, who became a bride herself just two years before.
But when Louise arrives at Cecilia’s sweet little cottage in the country, and sees the life she leads away from the city’s whirling social scene, Louise begins to question the path society has plotted for her. Should Louise accept Halsey’s proposal, or will she find the strength to follow her heart?
You can read this story on your phone, ipad, Kindle, or other electronic device.
Or you can read it as a PDF document on your computer screen. You can also print the story to share with friends.
Click on the book cover to choose your preferred format from BookFunnel.com.
This post is part of our Blogiversary Celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card! We’ll announce the winner tomorrow!
A big thank you to everyone who loves Isabella’s books.
Your support of Isabella’s blog and Facebook page has helped spread the word about her inspiring, Christ-centered novels and stories. It’s because of you that we’re now celebrating our …
5 Year Blogiversary!
We’re happy to announce the winner of this week’s $25 Amazon Gift Card Giveaway.
And the Winner is ….
Barbara Needham!
Barbara, please leave a comment on this blog post or direct message us on Isabella’s Facebook page to verify your email address.
The party isn’t over!
Please join us next week for . . .
A new free read by Grace Livingston Hill!
Puzzles and Posts about Isabella’s life and books!
Isabella often modeled the characters in her books after family members and friends. That was the case with “Little Minie” who appeared in more than a dozen of Isabella’s novels under the names “Minie” or sometimes “Minnie.”
In real life, “Little Minie” was Myra Heaton, but her family—including her adoring “Auntie Belle”—called her Minie.
Minie was born on May 30, 1861, and was named for her grandmother, Myra Spafford Macdonald (Isabella’s mother).
Minie’s mother was Isabella’s older sister Mary; her father was George Heaton, a newspaper publisher.
George Heaton’s advertisement for his newspapers in the 1870 Gloversville directory.
You may remember that it was George who published the first story Isabella wrote. Titled “Our Old Clock,” it appeared in his newspaper when Isabella was just a child. (You can read more about that here.)
George was a devout Christian, a temperance worker, and active in his church. This record from the First Presbyterian Church in Gloversville, New York shows George was elected as a Church Elder in 1864 and served in that capacity until his death in 1870.
Isabella was 23 years old and still living at home when Minie was born. Isabella called her “the special darling of our home.”
She forged a special bond with Minie, which was helped because Minie lived so close by. Isabella, her sister Julia and their parents lived in a large home in Gloversville. On adjoining lots were the homes of Isabella’s oldest sister, Elizabeth, who was married to Hiram Titus, and Mary, who was married to George Heaton.
Family members named in this post are highlighted in red boxes.
Family members passed between the three houses often and with ease, which was especially fortunate. As Isabella later wrote of her mother, “no one in our family ever could get ready to do anything without grandma’s help.” If there was a large meal to prepare, travel trunks to be packed, or big cleaning jobs to be done, Isabella’s mother—as well as members of all three extended families—had only to go “next door” to ask for or offer help.
Isabella wrote that the Heaton home was “at the upper end of the garden” behind her house, so it was only a few easy steps to visit Minie, or gather her up to take her back to Isabella’s own home for a visit and some pampering.
Minie grew up loving Jesus and trusting God. When Minie’s parents had to take a week-long trip, Minie stayed with Isabella and “Auntie Belle’s” mother and father. As Isabella walked Minie through the garden to the Macdonald home to spend her first night there, wise little Minie gave Isabella this advice:
“Auntie Belle, you must say your prayers every night and morning, always, no matter if your mamma is away; because God isn’t away, you know—he never packs his trunk and goes on a journey.”
Isabella adored her Minie, and spent precious time with her every day.
When Isabella married the Reverend Gustavus “Ross” Alden in 1866, she chose Minie’s fourth birthday as her wedding day, and Minie enjoyed special privileges throughout the day. She even joined the bride and groom on their ride in a beautiful barouche to the train station after the ceremony and reception. Thereafter, Minie often visited Isabella and Ross, who lived not far away.
In 1870, when Minie was eight years old, Isabella’s father became ill, and it was clear to everyone in the family that he was dying.
Minie and Isabella spent most of their summer in Isaac Macdonald’s room, keeping him company and soothing him when needed. Isabella wrote:
It was her delight to fan him, to arrange the pillows for him, to read to him in her soft, gentle voice; to sing to him when he was restless and feverish.
Minie would recite many little pieces to him, but his favorite was:
Many kinds of darkness In the world are found; There’s sin, there’s want, there’s sorrow, So we must shine. You, in your little corner, And I, in mine.
Isabella’s father died on July 26, 1870, not long after Minie finished singing one of his favorite hymns to him. The entire family grieved, but Minie cheered Isabella with this perspective:
“Oh, Auntie Belle, if he could only have taken us all right up to heaven with him, how sweet it would have been.”
By 1875, Minie was a vibrant, active fourteen-year-old; but in December of that year, she, too, fell ill. She was sick only a week, Isabella later wrote. Minie died on December 30.
A week later, Isabella wrote of the loss of her “special darling” in a letter to her Pansy Society, which she published in The Pansy magazine.
“Last Thursday at midnight the Lord Jesus called our darling Minie. He wanted her to come up to His beautiful home to live. She was not one bit afraid to go, for she knew and loved Jesus, and remembered His promise that she should come up there some day.
“Minie is resting today and forever with Him. But, oh—we miss her so!
“Still, we cannot help being glad that she will never be sick, or afraid, or unhappy anymore; and that we are all invited to come and live if we choose in that beautiful world, by and by. I choose. Do not you? I have promised to follow His directions. Have you? I am surely going, are you?”
As always, Isabella turned her heartbreak into an opportunity to talk to her young readers about God’s promise of salvation through Christ.
She received many replies from young members of her Pansy Society, and later said, “I like to think that dear Minie has already welcomed precious friends to that eternal home. It is a joy to me to linger over the memory of the earthly life of this young disciple who was not quite fifteen when God called her home.”
Now you know what inspired Isabella to create a “Minie” character in her Ester Ried books, in her novels Chrissy’s Endeavor, Only Ten Cents, and so many others. In each story, Isabella paid a small tribute to her “special darling,” little Minie Heaton.
This post is part of our Blogiversary Celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card! We’ll announce the winner tomorrow!
This post is part of our Blogiversary Celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered in Friday’s drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card!
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Chances are, you’re reading this post because you love Isabella Alden’s books.
From the time her first book, Helen Lester, was published in 1865, Isabella enjoyed success as an author.
By the late 1880s readers were buying over one-hundred-thousand copies of her books every year:
From The Brooklyn (New York) Standard Union, October 22, 1890.
When Isabella wrote her novels, there were no Internet sites like Goodreads or online retailers like Amazon for readers to post their reviews of Isabella’s books.
Instead, Isabella’s books were reviewed by literary editors in newspapers across the country.
When her novel Making Fate came out in 1896, a Boston newspaper declared:
Readers of all classes, from the serious to the frivolous, can read this story with entertainment and rise from its perusal refreshed.
The New England Farmer (Boston), August 1, 1896.
In 1901, a San Francisco newspaper reviewed Isabella’s novel, Pauline, and declared Isabella to be “a gifted writer.”
From The San Francisco Call, September 22, 1901. Click on the image to read the entire review.
Unfortunately, not all reviewers were so generous with their praise. One literary critic in a Pittsburgh newspaper wrote that Isabella’s 1902 novel Unto the End “is really not half a bad story in its way.” The critic goes on to classify Isabella’s readers among “those who ask from their literature nothing but that it shall not require them to think.” (You can read the entire review by clicking here.)
But reviews like “Pittsburgh’s” were few and far between. On the whole, Isabella’s novels were well received, and millions of Isabella’s faithful fans relied on those reviews to notify them when her new books were available for purchase.
Several times, in her stories and memoirs, Isabella mentioned keeping a scrapbook; it’s possible that’s where she kept clippings of her book reviews.
And if that’s true, she probably also kept reviews of the books written by her niece, Grace Livingston Hill.
Grace’s writing career took off in the 1900s. When her novel The Best Man was published in 1914, The Boston Globe’s literary critic praised the novel, saying it was “full of thrilling moments.”
It gave Joseph a curious sensation to hear his verse sung over and over again by the choir, the great organ rolling out the melody and seeming to him to speak the words almost as distinctly as the voices did. (A Dozen of Them, by Isabella Alden)
Church organs were often mentioned in Isabella Alden’s books, but they looked nothing like the organs we frequently see in churches today.
So here’s a jigsaw puzzle for you to solve that will reveal the type of church organ Isabella probably had in mind when she wrote her novels.
This post is part of our blogiversary celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered into Friday’s drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card!
Isabella Alden’s father Isaac Macdonald is often credited with instilling in her a love of writing. He gave her a journal when she was very young and—to teach her to pay attention in church—he encouraged her to take notes during Sunday sermons so they could discuss the minister’s message later in the day.
“A Writer” by William Adolphe Bouruereau, 1890.
But it was probably Isabella’s mother, Myra, who taught Isabella to be a great story-teller.
At a young age—even before she could write—Isabella’s mother encouraged her to make up little stories about things.
“Make a story out of it for mother,” she would say; and out of those beginnings, Isabella began to develop the writing skills that would serve her as an adult.
Myra was herself a story-teller, and often entertained her six children with stories of her own younger years.
Myra’s father was Horatio Gates Spafford, a well-respected author and New York newspaper editor, so she developed her own writing skills at a very early age.
Isabella credited her mother Myra with teaching her how to weave a story centered on a well-loved Bible verse. It was Myra’s habit to gather her children—and later, her grandchildren—around her in the evening to tell them stories that were entertaining and and helped make sense of a Bible verse or Sunday-school lesson.
Her stories always contained a practical lesson in walking daily with Christ—a theme Isabella adopted and perfected in her own stories.
When Isabella’s father Isaac Macdonald died in 1870 Isabella and her husband Ross made certain Myra came to live with them. Although Ross’s career as a Presbyterian minister caused them to move regularly from one town to another, Myra made her home with the Aldens for the next fifteen years.
Myra’s entry in the 1880 Cincinnati directory shows she resided with the “Rev. G. R. Alden’s.”
They were living in Carbondale, Pennsylvania when Myra died at home in 1885. Isabella was 43 years old when her mother passed away, and she missed her terribly.
At that time Isabella was editing The Pansy magazine; and since she and her family members—including Ross, her son Raymond, her sister Marcia, and Marcia’s husband Charles—were all contributing articles and stories to the magazine, Isabella and Marcia found a way to pay tribute to their mother in the pages of The Pansy.
The cover of an 1891 issue of The Pansy.
They began publishing short stories for children in The Pansy under the pseudonym “Myra Spafford.” The stories were reminiscent of the kind of stories Myra told her children and grandchildren.
In 1887 Isabella published Grandma’s Miracles; Stories Told at Six O’clock in the Evening. The book is a fictionalized account of those tender and loving evening story-times Myra had with her children and grandchildren.
You can read Grandma’s Miracles for free!
Click on the book cover to read this story on your phone, ipad, Kindle, or other electronic device.
Or you can read, print and share it as a PDF document on your computer. Just click on the book cover to start reading now.
Many people who love to read Isabella Alden’s books also enjoy the novels written by her niece, Grace Livingston Hill.
If you’ve ever searched for some of Grace’s titles, you’re not alone. Used copies of her novels are hard to find. If they are listed for sale on Internet sites, such as Ebay, fans immediately snap them up.
In the days before the Internet, fans had to search through used book stores to find her books. In some cases, they turned to newspapers to try to find copies. Here’s one example:
In the 1990s an Illinois newspaper had a regular column called “Good Neighbors.”
The column shared readers’ advice on a variety of topics, and gave readers a chance to ask or answer questions.
In March 1996 they ran a brief paragraph in the Good Neighbors column:
The newspaper received quite a few responses! Here are some of them:
You can tell there was a little bit of a bidding war going on, with some readers offering to pick the books up and pay for telephone calls (at a time when there were “toll” charges for calling a number in a different area code).
It happened again in 2001, when “M.B. of Lexington” offered to give away dozens of Grace Livingston Hill books:
It sounds like the newspaper was quite surprised to learn so many people were interested in novels that were written (at that time) almost 100 years before. And yet, Grace Livingston Hill’s books are still popular!
How about you? Do you read and collect Grace Livingston Hill novels? Do you have a complete collection? What are the methods you use to hunt down copies of her books?
Today, a soda fountain—when you can find one—is a quaint relic of a by-gone era. Think of soda fountains and you may think of ladies wearing corsets and long skirts, or gentlemen who never leave home without a hat, tie, and pocket watch.
Soda fountains are such benign objects to us, it’s hard to imagine that they ever had the potential to cause harm. But in Isabella’s day, there were hidden dangers in every soda fountain, in every town in America.
An average American drugstore in 1900. A soda fountain is on the right side of the photo.]
Isabella Alden recognized those hidden dangers and wrote about them, because she knew the dangers were not inconsequential. There were pitifully few laws at the time that regulated the sale or distribution of products that could be bought at the time; and many products included alcohol and addictive ingredients.
Children could obtain alcoholic drinks in saloons. Doctors prescribed alcohol to patients young and old.
A pair of 1894 trade cards depicting “a big spender and his girl” at the soda fountain.
And commonly used tonics and medications often contained alcohol and opiates—sometimes at alarmingly high levels—and most did not disclose their contents on their labels.
In 1888 this cough syrup proudly listed its addictive ingredients—cannabis, morphine, alcohol, and chloroform—on its label. Since no laws required such disclosures, few manufacturers revealed their product contents.
Here’s an example: In 1885 a man named John Pemberton began marketing a beverage he invented. He called it “French Wine Cola—Ideal Nerve and Tonic Stimulant.”
In an 1880 drugstore in Washington DC, this soda fountain sold a beverage called Wine Coca for five cents a glass.
Why such a name? Because every 7 ounce glass contained 9 milligrams of cocaine and a walloping dose of caffeine extracted from the kola bean. Initially, sales were sluggish.
But the following year, when Pemberton renamed the drink “Coca-Cola,” sales picked up. By the 1890s, Coca-Cola was being sold in stores and soda fountains all over the country . . . and it still contained cocaine and caffeine. (Coca-Cola’s formula didn’t change until after 1903.)
An 1890s trade card for Coca-Cola, touting it as the “ideal brain food” for relieving mental and physical exhaustion.
That’s one example of the “hidden dangers” Isabella wrote about.
A 1905 magazine ad for Coca-Cola.
In her novel One Commonplace Day, several scenes take place in the town drug store, which Isabella describes this way:
[It was ] glittering with its show of colored glass and brilliant liquids, and arranged with that regard to lovely combinations of color which is common in first-class drug stores. There is at one end a handsome soda fountain, with all the various cooling syrups and elegant appliances of first-class establishments.
The design for a new soda dispensing unit, showing front and side views, with marble counters and inlays (circa 1900).
Charlie Lambert, one of the characters in the story, was a temperance man who took pride in the fact that he drank no liquor and had no temptation to drink any. But he often took his lunch at the soda fountain, where he drank a soda almost every day during the summer.
An 1890 newspaper ad for Coca-Cola aimed at temperance advocates, despite the drink’s ingredients.
Chances are, Charlie’s soda was laced with wine, cocaine, caffeine, or one of any number of additives that were not disclosed to unsuspecting consumers.
The soda fountain in a Peoples Drug Store, Washington D.C., 1909.
In the book Isabella advances the theory that people often become addicted to alcohol or drugs because they develop a taste for them as children.
A 1916 advertising broadside showing boys drinking a case of beer or liquor.
When you think of the number of children who sat on soda fountain stools, unconsciously swinging their dangling feet as they enjoyed a glass of Coca-Cola—all the while pumping nine milligrams of cocaine through their veins—Isabella’s theory begins to make sense.
A 1905 ad in Harpers’ magazine.
Advertising for Coca-Cola and similar beverages was everywhere. Ads showed happy, peppy, beautiful people sipping cocaine-laced drinks.
Coca-Cola calendar art, 1915.
And some soda fountains and saloons distributed tickets to people on the sidewalks, with a buy-one-drink, get-one-free offer.
By today’s standards, Isabella’s novels about temperance and the evils of alcohol may come across as strident and unreasonable. In reality, Isabella was fighting a very real problem in the best way she knew how; by writing stories people could relate to.
An iconic 1890s Coca-Cola advertisement.
And while One Commonplace Day is, on the surface, a story about the American temperance movement in the late 1880s, it carries a deeper message.
In the book, a group of prayerful Christians band together to help one of their neighbors overcome his addiction to alcohol. They formulate a plan to intercede in his life and help put him on the path to sobriety.
A crowded Coca-Cola soda fountain in 1910.
They pray for him, invite him to church, intercept him before he can enter a saloon or drug store, and do everything they can to help him kick his addiction.
Much has changed since Isabella wrote One Commonplace Day in 1886, but Americans still struggle with issues of alcoholism and addiction.
What do you think? In today’s world, is it possible for a group of prayerful Christians—like the people Isabella wrote about in One Commonplace Day—to band together to change the life of one person who struggles with addiction?
Coca-Cola wasn’t the only tonic that promised health benefits from questionable ingredients. You can read more about quack cures and patent medicines on these sites:
Reviews and giveaways for Christian fiction and sweet, clean fiction. Bringing readers information on great stories and connecting authors with their readers.
This post is part of our Blogiversary Celebration! Leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page to be entered in a drawing for a $25 Amazon gift card!
Isabella Alden 