It’s difficult to describe how incredibly popular The Pansy magazine was. As the editor, Isabella received hundreds of letters every month from parents and children. Sometimes they wrote in response to a question Isabella posed in an article or story. Sometimes children wrote stories of their own and sent them to Isabella for her feedback.
Other times children confided their problems to Isabella and asked for her advice; others simply wrote to tell Isabella about their day.
In 1891 a little girl named Ida White wrote a letter about her family and home life that Isabella found so charming, she published the entire letter in The Pansy magazine for all her readers to see. Here is Ida’s letter.
Dear Pansy:
My hair has grown out in curls about three inches long all about my face and neck.
We have a little baby at our house, which we call Blue-eyed Pansy. His name is George Washington.
Both of my little brothers are tongue-tied, and have two toes on the same foot, grown together. They are as much alike as twins could be, only one is nine years, and the other three months old. Mamma took him to church last Sunday and he squealed; she took him out in the hall, and he squealed there; then she took him out in the yard, and gave him a roll on the grass. He cannot talk, but he has heard the word “look” so much, that he tries to say it, or seems to.
We have a little dog named “Tip.” He is about the size (and my sister thinks he is almost as sweet) as a pound of yellow sugar. We have four little kittens; their names are Adams, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Grant. We live on a farm in a two-story house, a mile and a half west of the village. We have two hundred little chickens.
A little oriole built its nest on a tree in our front yard; then a cuckoo stole the nest, and they brought up their families together. We have pansies blooming on the north side of the house. We have flowers from March till frost; and plenty of beautiful little hummingbirds, and innumerable bumble-bees.
I have an uncle living in California that mamma and I never saw; when he comes to see us, I will tell you about California. I would like to go to New York, and to Niagara Falls, and to see the ocean.
I think it is real good and kind of you to read other people’s children’s scratching, and give them a chance to write; and I love you for it. I hope your Ray will live till he is a man, for I think he will be a good and benevolent gentleman. You may publish my letter if you want to.
Good-by, Ida White.
In the last paragraph of her letter, Ida mentioned Isabella’s son “Ray.” At the time, Raymond Alden was three years old and the apple of Isabella’s eye. She often shared little stories in the magazine about his antics and mentioned him when she replied to children’s letters (“No, we haven’t any dog; but our Ray, whenever we ask him what he would like to have for a birthday present, says, “A big, black dog.”).
By all accounts, Ida’s wish came true, for Raymond Alden grew up to be a well-loved, well-respected and extremely “benevolent gentleman.”
If the surname “Dunmore” sounds familiar to you, you’ve probably read Isabella Alden’s novel, Miss Dee Dunmore Bryant.
In that book about the adventures of the Bryant family, Judge Dunmore was a kind and generous man who befriended the Bryant children and helped improve their fortunes.
Isabella must have liked the surname “Dunmore,” because six years earlier, she used the same name in a short story she published in The Pansy magazine. In the short story, the kindly and wise gentleman named Dunmore was a physician who went above and beyond his Hippocratic Oath to heal the heart of a badly injured patient.
“Doctor Dunmore’s Prayers” is this month’s free read.
When Mr. Greyson is badly injured at work, Dr. Dunmore does all he can to repair the man’s damaged body and orders him to bed. But with no income, the Greyson family is soon in dire straits and desperate for help. What else can the doctor do to help restore the man’s health and faith?
You can read “Doctor Dunmore’s Prayers” for free!
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Before Isabella published a new novel, she often shared the story in chapter-by-chapter installments in magazines. One example is her novel Christie’s Christmas. Before it was published in 1885, part of it appeared in The Pansy magazine under the title “Christie at Home.” Then the magazine’s publisher advertised the story in newspapers across the country:
From The Perry County Democrat (Pennsylvania) newspaper, November 5, 1884.
When Isabella’s niece, Grace Livingston Hill began her writing career, she followed suit. Several of her short stories and novels first appeared as serials in magazines before the complete story was published in book form.
In 1905 Grace’s novella The Governor’s Son was published as a serial in a Christian magazine. Then, in 1909, the same story appeared as a serial in a British magazine. Both publications included lovely pen and pencil illustrations of some of the story’s key scenes.
The Governor’s Son is about a young woman named Leslie who spends the summer with her sister and cousin at a seaside resort. Here’s one of the magazine illustrations showing Leslie befriending an elderly woman while on the train to the resort, as her sister and cousin look on.
That small act of kindness earns Leslie a new friend, and she and the elderly woman spend quite a bit of time together on the seashore.
The Governor’s Son was never published in book form, but all the complete magazine issues survived, so the story could be pieced together; and it’s now available for purchase on Amazon.com.
The Giveaway:
We’re giving away five e-book copies of The Governor’s Son by Grace Livingston Hill!
Shy, lovely Leslie Graham would rather spend her summer at home reading a book, but her parents insist she accompany her sister Anna to a seaside resort, where the sisters’ differences quickly come to light. While Anna tries to mingle with the resort’s most fashionable and wealthy inhabitants, Leslie makes friends with sweet, elderly Mrs. Hamilton, who likes to watch the ocean, quote Bible verses, and talk about her son. And when Mrs. Hamilton’s son arrives, Leslie realizes Chauncey Hamilton is just as thoughtful and handsome as his mother described. In the face of such kindness, Leslie can’t help but prefer to spend her days and nights with Chauncey and his mother, even as Anna plots to pull her in a more worldly and dangerous direction.
To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below or on Isabella’s Facebook page no later than midnight (EDT) on Thursday, September 14.
The five winners will be announced on Friday, September 15. Good luck!
If you love Grace Livingston Hill stories and can’t wait until Friday to read The Governor’s Son, you can purchase your copy of the novella by clicking here.
Remember: You don’t have to own an Amazon Kindle to read The Governor’s Son. Just download Amazon’s e-reader app to read the story on any electronic device.
This post is part of our 10-Year Blogiversary Celebration! Join us every weekday in September for a fun drawing, giveaway, or Free Read!
In 1876 Isabella Alden was serving her second year as editor of The Pansy magazine. At that time the magazine was published monthly and by all accounts, it was a success!
Children regularly wrote letters to her, telling how much they enjoyed an article or story. Some sent in word puzzles they had made, in hopes their puzzles would be published to delight (or possibly stump) other readers.
They also wrote to Isabella about their birthdays, how they spent a holiday, and the difficulties they encountered in daily life.
Here’s a letter a boy named Orvie B. Strain wrote to Isabella about the fun he had on April Fools’ Day.
Dear Pansy:
I will tell you some of the funny things that happened to me April first. I took an empty oyster can, done it up in brown paper, and laid it on the sidewalk. A young man came along, looked at it a minute, and then kicked it off the sidewalk, and I didn’t watch it any longer. Late in the afternoon, I went to look for it, and I found it all mashed fine.
As I came from the post-office, I forgot about its being April fool-day. I saw a two-cent piece lying on the side walk; I stopped to pick it up, and it was nailed fast. I had lots more fun, but I’ll not write about it this time. I am nine years old. May I belong to your ‘Pansy bed?’ This letter is written with my left hand.
Not only did Isabella publish many of the letters she received like Orvie’s, she replied to them all! Sometimes she sent individual replies by mail. Other times she simply wrote a quick reply in the next issue of The Pansy magazine.
Here are a few of those replies from the June 1876 issue of The Pansy. They give us a glimpse into Isabella’s personality and how she interacted with children:
LENA DARLING:
Delighted to hear from you, my darling. The story is good, and will appear in The Pansy one of these days. Give my love to “Rubie.”
NELLIE MILLS:
Such a nice little printed letter, with three new people in it! I am glad you think the Pansy “very nice.” Do you know, little darling, that you make Ns up-side down?
FRANKIE PAGE:
I am glad that you have learned to write. Fifteen cows! Oh my! Can you milk any of them?
LAURA KESSNER:
Welcome to the Pansy bed. You must wait patiently from month to month. Pansies have to grow, you know.
IDA T. DERBY:
How many words did you miss at spelling school? Tell us all about it. Are there no little people in your “garden,” to make a Sunday-school of? Can’t you start one?
BERTHA WOLCOTT:
I am glad to hear you think so much of our paper; but you must not expect Pansies to blossom every week! You have made a splendid selection of verses for your acrostic [puzzle].
CHARLIE FISK:
Your puzzle is good. It will appear in The Pansy some time. Are you practicing on your verses?
PUELLA HALBERT:
Have you enjoyed my visits? May you be one of His “little ones.” We must all keep young hearts. See Matthew xviii. 3.
IDA MAY HATFIELD:
There was good news in your letter. It is very easy to “live a Christian life,” if we always “love to pray.”
JOSEPH WASSON:
We too have a pony, and his name is Tony. We haven’t any dog; but our Ray, whenever we ask him what he would like to have for a birthday present, says: “A big, black dog.”
WATSON BEAR:
I’ll answer your questions with pleasure. There’s a lady edits the paper, and her name is Pansy, and ever and ever so many thousands of children take it. You write a letter to all the Pansies, and if it isn’t more than twelve lines long, I’ll publish it. That is a good idea.
HORACE A. STRAIN:
Yes, indeed; you shall belong to the “Pansy bed.” Will you be a great, purple Pansy, or a little bit of a white one? You got pretty high up in school, didn’t you, and only seven years old? Well done.
EVA HATFIELD:
Welcome, Eva. We shall not consider you a stranger any longer. We all belong to the same garden. I hope we are all trying for the same home.
ALBERT P. OVERMAN:
Poor little Ralph, or, rather, Ralph’s mamma. How sorry we are for her! You miss him from the Sunday-school, but think what a great army of Sunday-school children he has joined!
MINNIE L. SMITH:
The puzzle is very nice. It will appear just as soon as we get to it, but there are about twenty-five ahead of you. I am glad you like The Pansy so much. We are going to make it semi-monthly one of these days. What was your prize, and for what was it given? Kiss “Tidy” for me. I think Benny gave her a very pretty pet name. I am glad of the good news about yourself.
Isabella’s husband the Reverend G. R. Alden regularly wrote poems, which were published in The Pansy magazine. In June 1891 he celebrated the closeness of siblings with this delightful poem:
"Twice one is two."
That's a text for you.
Whether at work or play,
Whether by night or day,
Whether in school or store,
On table, or shelf or floor,
This is the thing we do —
We prove the rule is true.
One cannot truly love alone,
No more than could a granite stone;
Better eat dinner without bread,
Or think sweet thoughts, without a head.
The heart all empty is, you see,
And one must enter there and be
The tenant, and fill up the hollow,
Just like the dinner you would swallow.
Quarrel alone! That would be funny!
Sooner have bees, but never honey!
Better a cart with but one wheel,
Better a flint, with never a steel.
With half a shears, if you were clever,
You might do work; but you could never
Quarrel alone, in all your life;
Someone must help you in the strife.
S'pose that is why God made us two,
That we might love each other true;
Not hate and quarrel, scratch and fight,
So drive away his love and light;
But helping each, in work or play,
We'll hurry on the heavenly way,
And by and by together stand,
Before his throne, each hand in hand.
Last week’s free read, The Little Red Shop, first appeared in The Pansy magazine and told the story of the Brimmer children—Jack, Cornelius and Rosalie. They started their own business to help support their mother and baby sister, and made a great success of it!
But author Margaret Sidney knew that with great success comes great responsibility—a lesson she illustrated in this week’s free read, The Old Brimmer Place.
The Brimmer family’s adventures continue as their little red shop prospers and thrives. But when Jack discovers a neighbor’s shameful secret, he, Corny, and Rosy can’t agree about what to do about it. Should they help their neighbor? Or should they ignore friends in need and simply concentrate on their business?
You can read The Little Red Shop for free!
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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.
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
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 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
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.
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:
Isabella loved her niece Grace Livingston, and she was very proud of Grace’s talent for writing.
When Grace was only twelve years old she wrote her first book, The Esselstynes. It was a story about the life changes a brother and sister experience when they are adopted by a Christian couple. Isabella was so impressed by the story, she had it printed and bound as a book, and she encouraged Grace to write more.
Grace obliged and wrote poems, as well as stories. She wrote the poem below, which Isabella published in an issue The Pansy magazine in April 1881—just in time for Grace’s 16th birthday!
Here’s how the poem appeared in the magazine:
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And here’s a transcript of the poem:
THE EVENING STAR
BY GRACE
You beautiful star,
Shining afar,
Above the depths of sin,
Unbar the door
Of the heavenly floor,
And give me one glimpse in.
Into the bright
And golden light,
In the presence of the King,
Where the angels play
Night and day,
And the choirs forever sing.
The streets of gold,
The glories untold,
Oh, how I long to see!
Star, if you could,
Bright star! if you would
Show those glories to me!
What do you think of Grace’s poem?
When you were young, did you have a relative, teacher or friend in your life who encouraged you to develop a talent?
Isabella’s brother-in-law Reverend Charles M. Livingston wrote several articles for The Pansy magazine in which he explained Bible verses that might seem confusing at first. Here’s one he wrote in 1888:
Bear ye one another’s burdens. (Galatians 6:2)
Every one shall bear his own burden. (Galatians 6:5)
Cast thy burden upon the Lord. (Psalms 4:22)
How do we reconcile these verses that conflict one with another? Think in this way:
One day Martha went over the way to the pump with a four-quart pail for some water, and soon returned to her mother with it.
An hour later she went with an eight-quart pail and, filling it, tried to carry it back, but could not. Her neighbor, Mark, happened to be there with his three-quart pail. He offered to carry hers and let her carry his, and so they did and got on nicely.
Some time after they were both at the pump again, each with an extra pail. They were soon filled, but when they tried to lift them all and go forward they could not. Just then their good friend Moses came along and, seeing their trouble and their pleading looks, came to them, and with his two strong arms took up the extra heavy pails of water and easily and cheerfully carried them to their homes, while they followed with their other pails.
Maybe this will aid you to see that those three texts are not so hard, after all; that they do not go against each other, but go rather hand in hand.
What do you think of Rev. Livingston’s explanation?
Isabella was deeply involved in the Christian Endeavor movement. Each month the Society of Christian Endeavor published meeting guides and lesson plans for local chapters to use in their meetings. When the May 1894 meeting guide focused on Peter’s actions in the book of Luke, Isabella wrote a special “open letter” to the youngest C.E. members to help them understand the context of the lesson. Here’s what she wrote:
Dear Young People:
Some of you are studying this month about Peter. You are dreadfully shocked over him as you read his story in the twenty-second chapter of Luke. I do not wonder. How terrible it must have been to Jesus to have heard Peter say, “I know him not!”
And in another place it tells how Peter even swore that he did not know him! Poor, wretched Peter!
If we had not heard anything more about him, we should have despised him all our lives. And as it is, we are quite sure that we would never have done such a thing as that, if we had been on earth when Jesus was. I heard a boy say so, once.
“No, ma’am!” he said, his cheeks growing red at the thought. “I tell you, I am very sure I never should have denied him. The idea!”
Yet only the next day that boy was playing croquet with some other boys, and two began to swear.
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“Hush!” said one of them, after a minute. “We mustn’t swear before Tommy; he’s a goody-goody boy and has promised never to use any naughty words. Run away, Tommy, before we hurt you.”
What did Tommy say? Remember, he was the boy who knew he would not have denied Jesus. He laughed, and blushed, and said:
“I’m not afraid of your words; say what you like.”
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Why did he say that? Why, because he was ashamed to own before those boys that he belonged to Jesus Christ, and had promised to try to please him. Don’t you think he denied him quite as much as Peter did?
Oh, there are many ways of doing it. I am reminded of a girl I used to know, whose mother did not approve of little girls taking walks on Sunday.
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On the way home from Sunday-school, her classmates said to her:
“Come on, let’s go down to the river for a walk;” and she answered:
“Oh, I can’t today; I have a little headache.”
She said this, not because of her headache, which was not enough to keep her from going anywhere she pleased, but because she did not like to own that she had been taught it was not the right way to spend Sabbath time, and she was trying to do right. Do you think there was a little bit of denial of Jesus in her heart just then?
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