If you’ve spent any time getting to know the characters in Isabella Alden’s novels, you’ve probably met them multiple times: the widow who takes in lodgers to keep her family afloat, the young store clerk boarding far from home for the first time, the landlady presiding over a dinner table crowded with as many opinions as boarders. Boarding houses show up so often in her stories that it’s easy to read right past them — but for Isabella’s original readers, they needed no explanation. For us, more than a century later, a bit of an explanation is in order.
Newsapaper ad for a private boarding house in Florida, 1878.
A boarding house was, at its simplest, a private home where the owner rented out rooms and provided meals — typically breakfast and dinner were included in the weekly rate, with lunch offered as a lighter, extra meal since working boarders were away at midday. This is an important distinction: a boarding house was not the same thing as a rooming house, where a lodger rented a room but ate meals elsewhere, usually at a restaurant. Boarders lived and ate under one roof; roomers just slept there. Isabella’s characters moved between both kinds of arrangements, and knowing the difference helps explain a lot about their daily routines (and their complaints).
A small private home open to boarders. The sign near the seated woman reads “Rooms by day or week.”
A well-run boarding house was expected to offer more than just a bed. According to the standards of the day, a boarder could expect a clean, whole set of bedding, a washstand with a large pitcher for washing up, fresh drinking water left by the bed at night, and a well-supplied bathroom down the hall. Whether a house actually delivered on these basics — or fell woefully short of them — could make the difference between a boarder’s contentment and outright misery. We meet both kinds of houses in Isabella’s novels.
A boarder’s room at a boarding house in Uniontown, Pennsylvania (courtesy Uniontown Public Library).
In Isabella Alden’s lifetime, a woman who needed to support herself — or her family — had only a handful of respectable options. She could teach school. She could sew. She could clerk in a store. Or she could keep a boarding house.
That last option had a particular appeal for women who already owned a home, especially widows left with a house too large for their remaining family and no other income. It required little starting capital. You didn’t need to buy a building or stock a shop; you just opened the doors of the house you already had. And on paper, it looked deceptively simple: cook a bit more food, make up a few extra beds, and collect the weekly rent.
The dining room at Mrs. Heath’s boarding house, Duluth, Minnesota, 1893.
In practice, as Isabella’s own characters discover, it was one of the hardest ways a woman could make a living. Keeping boarders happy, fed, and paying required real business sense — knowing what to charge, what “extras” to allow, how to set rules boarders would actually obey and respect — and it demanded relentless physical labor that often fell hardest on daughters and servants rather than the woman whose name was on the sign. That was certainly the case in the Ried household in Isabella’s novel, Ester Ried.
Ad for a large well-staffed boarding house in the Toronto Daily Star, 1904.
Isabella Alden probably had some personal experience as a boarder. As the wife of a minister who moved frequently from one calling to the next, she likely spent time in boarding houses and rented rooms herself, sizing up landladies and dining rooms much the way her characters do. That experience may be exactly why her boarding house scenes feel so specific and true.
Isabella’s fellow boarders had their own reasons for renting rooms. They were people who needed lodging but didn’t have or want a household of their own — young unmarried clerks and salesmen, professionals new to a city, widows and widowers, traveling businessmen with schedules that didn’t match a family’s routine, and increasingly, by the turn of the century, single working women living independently of their families for the first time.
Some residents of the Taylor Boarding House in Denton, Texas, 1904.
That mix of backgrounds, ages, and personalities all sharing one dining table is exactly what made boarding houses such fertile ground for Isabella’s imagination. For her, a boarding house dining room could be the setting for a marriage proposal, a theological argument, a landlady’s quiet influence on a wayward young man, or a boarder-turned-lifelong-friend, all in the course of an ordinary week. Isabella used her boarding houses not just as scenery, but as places where her characters’ true selves came out and sometimes, their spiritual journeys were corrected.
Join us again on October 20 when we’ll begin looking at the boarding houses in Isabella’s novels, starting with a weary young heroine named Ester Ried and the exhausting responsibilities she carries as she tries to keep her family afloat.
Long before modern crossword puzzles appeared in 1913, Victorians enjoyed word games to pass the time. One of the most popular forms was the acrostic—a puzzle where the first letter of each line spells out a word, name, or hidden message when read vertically down the page.
A classic acrostic poem looks like this:
Stars up in the sky They sparkle with love All so glorious Radiant above
Reading the first letters top-to-bottom reveals the secret word: STAR.
In The Pansy magazine, Isabella Alden encouraged her young readers to build acrostics, but with a spiritual twist — she asked them to spell out their names using lines from their favorite Bible verses.
Children responded with enthusiasm, sending in hundreds of scripture acrostics over the years, many of which Isabella published.
Here is one example sent in by a young reader who drew her verses from the Coverdale translation of the Bible. Can you read the first letter of each line to figure out her name?
Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right. And call upon me in time of trouble, so will I hear thee. Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes. Early in the morning do I cry unto thee.
Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Order my steps in thy word, and so shall no wickedness have dominion over me. Delight thou in the Lord, and he shall give thee thy heart’s desire. Make me to understand the way of thy commandments. A small thing the righteous hath is better than great riches of the ungodly. Now are ye light in the Lord, walk as children of light.
Did you figure it out? The writer was Kate K. Rodman!
Another reader, Fanny C. Tingue, submitted a verse acrostic with a surprise. Instead of spelling her own name, she used scripture to spell out the name of her favorite author:
My sheep hear my voice. Righteous lips are the delight of kings. So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper.
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. Remove from me reproach and contempt.
And many believed on Him. Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord. Every man shall kiss his lips that giveth a right answer. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Fanny’s acrostic spells out MRS. G. R. ALDEN—Isabella’s married name—a thoughtful tribute that must have delighted Isabella.
Encouraging children to craft scripture acrostics was a wonderfully creative way to help them search the Scriptures, practice reading, and memorize verses that touched their hearts.
Why not try following Isabella’s challenge yourself? Choose your name, open your Bible, and see if you can create an acrostic using your favorite verses!
In the early 1910s, Americans were experiencing a world in turmoil. With major events like the start of World War I and the sinking of the Titanic, many people found themselves looking for reassurance, order, and a sense of control over their futures. One surprising place they turned to—The stars.
During this time, a massive craze for astrology, palmistry, and fortune-telling swept the country. Newspapers filled their classified pages with advertisements from self-proclaimed astrologers, clairvoyants, and palm readers promising to map out business prospects, cure health troubles, and—most popular of all—arrange perfect marriages.
from the Telegram and Gazette (Worcester, Massachusetts) September 6, 1914.
Raymond Macdonald Alden—Isabella’s son—recognized the growing trend. Raymond was an acclaimed scholar and author in his own right. He held a doctorate, served as chair of the English department at Stanford University, and was a noted expert on Shakespeare and classic literature who frequently delivered popular lectures.
from the Richmond Times Dispatch, May 1, 1919.
Raymond was also an award-winning short story writer. He watched the growing obsession with astrology and palmistry with a sharp, humorous eye. In 1914, he confronted the trend the best way he knew how: through a light-hearted romantic story that poked fun at the craze. His story playfully shows how common sense, honesty, and real human connections make a far more reliable foundation for love than any horoscope ever could.
When a skeptical young man stumbles into a Los Angeles “Bureau of Destiny” to cure his heartache, he has little hope for a happy future. But as the bureau’s clever secretary takes his romantic fate into her own hands, he soon learns that destiny works in mysterious and delightfully unexpected ways.
One hundred years ago, J. B. Lippincott Company published two new novels by Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill: A New Name (her 43rd novel) and Coming Through the Rye (her 44th novel).
The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 1926
The mid-1920s were an interesting time for an author like Grace. While literary critics enthusiastically praised modernist writers like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, everyday readers continued to turn to Grace for something entirely different: comfort, clear moral lessons, and stories that reminded them that life could have a noble purpose.
Evening Express, Portland, Maine, September 28, 1926
Community reading groups like the Riverside Reading Circle in Bridgeport, Connecticut, frequently placed her latest releases right at the top of their schedules:
The Bridgeport Telegram, May 24, 1926.
That enthusiasm wasn’t limited to the 1920s. Decades later, readers were still discovering her work for the first time—and realizing their mothers and grandmothers had loved her, too. In April 2000, a newspaper in Kentucky published an article by a feature writer named Nancy Taylor, who wrote:
I discovered a small volume, Coming Through the Rye, and enjoyed it so much, I mentioned it to my mother as if I were telling her something she didn’t know.
“Grace Livingston Hill!” she said. “I’ve read so many of her books I don’t know where to begin. Matched Pearls is one of my favorite stories ever.”
Chicago Tribune, September 25, 1926.
Ms. Taylor went on to write:
My great-grandmother read them, my grandmother read them, my mother read them, I’ve read them, and my daughter reads them.
St Louis Globe-Democrat October 16, 1926
The old adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same” is still true. Grace’s novels continue to hold the same place in readers’ hearts today as they did in 1926, and every year since. Perhaps Ms. Taylor said it best in the closing lines of her article published twenty-six years ago:
Where there is discouragement in the world, Grace sowed encouragement. Where there is yearning, Grace sowed hope, and she did it across generations. It is such a comfort to know that words which so long ago inspired our great-grandmothers are today an inspiration for our daughters. Grace Livingston Hill is the author of that gift.
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In 1918, Isabella’s husband, Reverend G. R. Alden was a healthy, hardy 86-year-old. Though retired from his ministerial duties in the Methodist church, he remained incredibly active. The Aldens were living in Palo Alto, California at the time, and because the Reverend didn’t drive, his bicycle was his primary mode of transportation. Seeing him pedaling his bike around town was a familiar and endearing sight in the neighborhood.
A roadster bicycle from about 1915, described in advertisements as “admirably suitable for the young and middle-aged.”
Rev. Alden was also a well-known dog lover. Years earlier, he had written two children’s novels centered around a canine protagonist named Major: Major’s Autobiography and Major’s Friends, were both serialized in the pages of The Pansy magazine in 1892.
An illustration from the 1892 serial story, “Major’s Friends.”
He was very open about his affection for four-legged friends. In the opening lines of Major’s Friends he declared to his young readers:
“By this time you will begin to believe that I am fond of dogs. Well, I am, if they are good, and I am especially fond of large, intelligent dogs.”
With such a deep affection for man’s-best-friend, it must have come as quite a shock to the Alden family—and the community—when the local papers ran a startling headline in July 1918.
According to the July 17, 1918 issue of the Peninsula Times Tribune, Rev. Alden was riding his bicycle near his home one evening when he was suddenly “assaulted” by a vicious bull terrier. The dog bit him, leaving a painful injury on his left leg just above the ankle. The next morning, Rev. Alden reported the attack to the police, requesting that immediate action be taken to muzzle or properly handle the dangerous dog.
Because Isabella and the Reverend were such prominent figures in the region, the story quickly spread beyond Palo Alto to nearby San Jose. The Aldens were frequent visitors to the Mount Hermon Christian Camp in Santa Cruz, where they owned a cottage, so two days later, the Santa Cruz newspaper also picked up the story and added a few additional details for its readers.
The article made sure to note that Mrs. Alden was the famous author of the beloved “Pansy” books, and proudly mentioned that their son, R. M. Alden, was currently serving as a professor at nearby Stanford University.
Thankfully, an injury above the ankle couldn’t keep a robust 86-year-old retired minister down for long, and Rev. Alden was soon back on his bicycle, pedaling around Palo Alto. It’s fascinating to see how a minor local mishap can reveal so much about the Aldens’ daily lives, their tight-knit family, and their enduring fame in California.
Did you know Reverend Alden wrote children’s stories about dogs? Have you ever read about Major’s adventures? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!
Our July free read is a short story by an author who may be new to you. Margaret Marshall Saunders was a Canadian writer of children’s stories and a passionate advocate for animal welfare. She was thirty-two years old and just starting her writing career in earnest when her novel Beautiful Joe was published in 1893 under her pen name “Marshall Saunders.” The book quickly became a worldwide bestseller and made history as the first book by a Canadian author to sell over a million copies.
Margaret Saunders was a talented writer, and when she submitted her short story “It Might Have Been” to Isabella Alden for publication in The Pansy magazine, the story must have touched Isabella’s heart.
Margaret Marshall Saunders with her dog, Billie Sunday.
Like the character of Ella Crouse in the story, Isabella had a temper! Throughout her life Isabella candidly shared times when her quick flare-ups and uncontrolled anger often got the best of her, leading to situations she later regretted. It’s easy to see how she identified with Margaret Saunders’ beautifully written story. She undoubtedly knew that this tale of regret and sisterly love would resonate deeply with her readers.
Published in the June 1895 issue of The Pansy, “It Might Have Been” by Margaret Marshall Saunders is a lovely short story that reminds us that building character is a slow process—earned through daily patience, forgiveness, and love.
Ella and her sister, Jessie, are opposites in every way. While Jessie is calm and fragile, Ella possesses a fierce, volatile temper that she struggles to master. One chaotic morning, a minor misunderstanding over a pair of gloves escalates into a passionate argument that Ella regrets. But when an unexpected crisis strikes the family later that day, Ella is forced to confront the terrifying reality of what might have been if she never got the chance to say “I’m sorry.”
In 1892 Isabella Alden—writing under her pseudonym, Pansy—was one of the most popular fiction authors in the U.S. Her novels were translated into multiple languages and sold around the world. A “Pansy book” was guaranteed to occupy an honored place on bookstore and library shelves.
She wasn’t alone on the best-seller lists. At that time the literary world was dominated by books like:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde The Sign of the Four by Arthur Conan Doyle Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
These novels were praised for their new “realistic” writing style that featured characters and plots that were “true to life.” By comparison, some critics complained the characters in Isabella’s books were “too good to be true” and her themes were “sentimental.”
Isabella clapped back.
She wrote an essay for a Christian magazine titled “How to Read a Story.” In it, she fiercely defended her work and taught a master class on how a Christian should select and read fiction. Her essay gives us a wonderful insight into Isabella’s philosophy as a writer—and the high expectations she had for her audience.
Read Isabella’s essay below. When you’re finished, continue on to see how her 134-year-old words still hold true today and perfectly describe one of her most famous characters.
HOW TO READ A STORY
BY “PANSY”
My complete subject is: “How to read a story so as to get the most good out of it.” Let me emphasize the thought involved; first choose your story. There are stories which are not and cannot by any process be made helpful. Busy young people, at least, have a right to the best.
Of course there is a difference of opinion as to what is the best, and perhaps the first thing to be done in order to get help from a story is to decide why it should be helpful. We hear a great deal about realistic writers, or those who picture life as it is. At first thought these seem to be the ones whom we should choose for helpfulness, because of what use is it to study a life which is not helpful? But a closer look shows you that there are two sides to this question. The police reports, the murder trials, the accounts of bar-room fights, and the like, are intensely realistic; but why should we grovel in such scenes as these, merely because they are too sadly true to life?
We hear a great deal about sentimental writers, until some of us are in danger of learning to think that sentiment of any sort is a very weak and offensive thing. The fact is, there is a vast difference between sentiment and sentimentalism, and we young people must learn to discriminate between them. For instance, the sentiment of love is ennobling, uplifting, immortal in its power; but the sentimentalism of love which makes a parade of its outward forms—dishes them up for silly readers, giving to the public words and caresses which should be held in sacred privacy—merits our stern disgust. To discriminate between them is what we want to learn.
It has become a fashion of the present day to sneer at what is called the “goody-goody” book; by which too often is meant the book written with an evident purpose to accomplish good in the world. But whatever others may say, of course no Christian reader will be found sneering at the book which was “written for a purpose,” for without a purpose worthy of an immortal, what right has one to write, or one to read, who is pledged to “try to do, every day, just what Jesus would like to have him do?”
Only yesterday a young lady, speaking of a character in a well known book, said, “He is too good—unnaturally good; there never lived a man like him.”
Did there not, dear friend? Have you forgotten the man Christ Jesus, who came to be our example?
I take it, young friends, that if there be a legitimate realm for fiction in a Christian’s life, it is found in an earnest attempt to portray, and an earnest effort to study, a character which represents not what most people are, but what people might become who tried to live each day a life hid with Christ in God. When next you hear the cry of “unnaturalness” raised against a book or character, try to learn whether it should be unnatural, or whether it is not your privilege to live just as round and full and beautiful a life as that.
Well, we have chosen our story; how shall we read it?
“How not to do it, is the first rule to apply,” said a young reader to whom I appealed the other day. And when I further questioned, he explained, “Why, don’t plunge in, and read for twelve consecutive hours, straight through. If you do, you will feel at the close as if you had been to a three days’ circus, and on the whole you will be disgusted with the performance. I have discovered it to be a good plan to lay aside a story as soon as I have found I don’t want to … I do not want a story-book to be my master.” I think so many stories get out of their proper place in our lives.
Do you ever try to study a writer’s power over you? To define what pleases you in the story? Why you want to read it? I think that is one of the ways of making a story helpful.
“I mark books freely,” said one young reader who reads to good purpose, “stories as well as other matter. I mark the passages which thrilled me, and go carefully over them when the story is finished, to discover, if I can, why they thrilled, and whether, on sober second reading, they still have that power. Moreover, it is not much of a book which does not give you one or two thoughts that you want to remember and quote for the benefit or pleasure of others.”
Sometimes we get good out of a story by carefully studying the characters whom we admire, and discovering why we admire them. If we find that in certain situations their conduct has been admirable, and that in like situations we should be tempted to act differently, we can use this story to forewarn and forearm ourselves against a future temptation. The reverse of this proposition is also true. I remember reading, years ago, a story in which I disliked a certain character. A careful analysis of my reason and a little careful thinking developed within me the astounding thought that I was often guilty of the same line of conduct, though I had never realized it before.
I would have you learn to note with exceeding care the effect which a story is having on you as you read. Does life seem to you a better, nobler, grander thing as you read of its dealings with these creatures of fiction? Do you admire true courage and unselfishness more? Do you feel more eager than ever to overcome within you that which mars your usefulness and cripples your influence? Do you rise up from its pages feeling stronger to do that day’s’ duties, however small; to bear that day’s crosses, however irksome? Then indeed such a story may be to you a voice from the King himself urging you to higher and better endeavor in his service.
But if, on the other hand, as you read, the every-day commonplace life that you are called upon to live grows petty to you, grows irksome; if sin in any form looks less appalling to you because your story has awakened some weak interest in the sinner; if, in short, God, and duty, and endeavor in His name and for His sake seem less important and less inviting because of the story you are reading, let me beg you to put the book from you as unworthy of the thought of an immortal soul.
In her essay Isabella wrote, “Sometimes we get good out of a story by carefully studying the characters we admire, and discovering why we admire them.”
Were truer words ever written? Isabella wasn’t just lecturing readers about an impossible standard—she shared her secret for creating enduring fiction. Her books still have the power to make readers examine their own lives, leaving us feeling “stronger to handle our daily duties [and] to bear that day’s crosses.” Perhaps more importantly, her stories showed us “what people might become who tried to live each day a life hid with Christ in God.”
Ester Ried is one of Isabella’s most beloved characters because she fulfills that exact role. Ester’s struggles with a never-ending to-do list, financial worries, and family friction feels incredibly modern because we still wrestle with the very same problems today.
Isabella also wrote that sometimes we can learn from the reverse, by looking at a character we dislike and realizing “we share the exact same flaws.”
This also applies to Ester Ried. Ester wanted a deeper spiritual life, but she was too tired, too cynical, and too overwhelmed by her daily “crosses” to find it. We readers might initially judge Ester’s grumbling attitude, until we realize we often handle our own busy, stressful lives with the same grumbling spirit.
Ester’s eventual transformation isn’t an overnight miracle that makes her rich or takes away her chores. Instead, the grace Ester finds altersher heart toward her daily duties. Because Isabella grounded Ester in real human emotion, Ester’s journey still inspires us to find that same grace in our own hectic lives.
What do you think of Isabella’s essay?
When you first read Ester Ried, did you see your own daily frustrations reflected in her? How did her journey help you look at your own “every-day commonplace life” with fresh eyes?
What other Pansy novels have you read that served as a mirror that made you examine your own life?
This month’s free read is a short story Isabella wrote for an 1876 issue of The Pansy magazine about Janie Smith, a miller’s daughter who can’t help comparing her own plain life with another girl’s seemingly charmed one.
Janie Smith has never ridden the stage coach, never seen the city, and never owned anything half so fine as the traveling costume Miss Josephine Jennings wears. Watching the elegant young heiress board the train one morning, Janie can’t help but feel the world has been very unfair. But the express-man’s quiet words — “Poor little thing!” — are about to change everything Janie thinks she knows about fairness and God’s blessings.
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.”
In honor of Mother’s Day this month’s free read is a story about the debt of love we owe to those who raised us.
After a life of sacrifice, widowed Mrs. Kensett finds her twilight years spent shuffling between the homes of her adult children, where she’s treated more like a burden than a beloved guest. She expects more of the same when she arrives at the doorstep of her youngest son and his new bride—only to find an unexpected sanctuary at long last.
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