8/3/2017 0 Comments A Lantern In Her HandA Lantern in Her Hand: Bess Streeter Aldrich: 9. Aldrich’s pioneer woman was based on her mother, and the integrity of her depiction of life in a sod house in the late nineteeth- century Nebraska speaks to her readers. In her own introduction Aldrich writes of wanting to tell her mother’s story after her mother’s death: ’Other writers had depicted the Midwest’s early days, but so often they had pictured their women as gaunt, browbeaten creatures, despairing women whom life seemed to defeat. First published in 1928, A Lantern in Her Hand has outlasted literary fashions to touch generations of readers. In this classic story of a pioneer woman, Bes. THE STORY BEHIND A LANTERN IN HER HAND By Bess Streeter Aldrich When the editor of Christian Herald asked me to write the story behind the story of "A Lantern in Her. When A Lantern in Her Hand came out in 1928, critics took little notice, but people everywhere soon discovered it. By the end of 1919, even as the Great Depression. A Lantern in Her Hand is set in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Do you think Aldrich stays true to the time and people? A Lantern in. She walked up the pasture to the barn (which is in the permanent fencing) and the goats were just sitting peacefully in the barn! They had voluntarily stayed in there. Abbie Mackenzie dreamed of becoming a fine lady, devoted to music and art. But at eighteen Abbie found a different dream, abandoning a comfortable life to marry. A Lantern in Her Hand Summary & Study Guide includes detailed chapter summaries and analysis, quotes, character descriptions, themes, and more. A Lantern in Her Hand has 4,191 ratings and 540 reviews. Jennifer said: This book was beautifully written! It was a simple, yet tender story. Find great deals on eBay for a lantern in her hand and vintage christmas. Shop with confidence. ![]() ![]() That was not my mother. Not with her courage, her humor, her nature that would cause her to say at the end of her life: ’We had the best time in the world.’. If the book tries to crowd too much life into 3. We old pioneers,’ Abbie says at the end, ’we dreamed dreams into the country.’. A LANTERN IN HER HAND. A Project Gutenberg of Australia e. Book. Title: A Lantern in her Hand (1. Author: Bess Streeter Aldrich, 1. Book No.: 0. 50. 05. Language: English. Character set encoding: HTML- -Latin- 1(ISO- 8. Date first posted: June 2. Date most recently updated: June 2. This e. Book was produced by: Don Lainson dlainson@sympatico. Cecilia Garcia. Project Gutenberg of Australia e. Books are created from printed editions. Australia, unless a copyright notice. We do NOT keep any e. Books in compliance with a particular. Be sure to check the. You may copy it, give it away or re- use it under the terms. Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at. To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http: //gutenberg. A LANTERN IN HER HAND. Here at my desk several weeks later the task. For the roots of a writer's work in. So the article must contain something of my childhood, for. I began, all unconsciously, to gather material. The child of middle- aged parents, I was the last of a family. Iowa farm into the. Cedar Falls, so I was not a farm child and never. There was. a great deal of talk and laughter in that childhood home, for. Cedar River when the state. My grandfather, Zimri Streeter, had arrived in Blackhawk. County with his big family in 1. Mississippi and the crossing of the river was made by. He built a sturdy log cabin, sheltered his neighbors. Indian scare or two, and turned the virgin sod. Dipping. into the politics of the new county, he was elected to the first. Iowa City to the little new Des Moines. Because of his. dry wit he was called . He was. sixty- four years old then, and when he got back to Atlanta he. Sherman to the sea. There is a. story to the effect that in all the hardships he had to undergo. All these tales of hardy old Zimri floated around my childish. Mother's family came to the county two years later than. At eighteen she drove one of the teams all the. Illinois. Sometimes she would recall the scenes of. Mississippi, the horses and. She would tell the happenings. The camping. on the edge of the woods, the sounds of the night winds, the. I could almost see and hear and smell them myself. So the pictures she drew for me verbally became a part of my. I. was born. And with no possible foresight on my part of how they. Mother was a high- minded woman, a lover of good literature. She. was a person who found joy in little things- -to whom a cloud. In those early days of hard work after. And being so torn, she did what many. When she was in her eighties, she once related some pioneer. In a moment. of sympathy I remarked that we daughters were sorry her life had. She looked at me with an odd little expression and. We had the best time in the. Other writers had. Midwest's early days, but so often they had pictured. That was not my mother. Not with her. courage, her humor, her nature that would cause her to say at the. Almost. before the outline of the book was formulated, I named this main. Abbie Deal, a name which seemed from the first to fit. The fictitious character, Abbie Deal, might have lived. She might have traveled into the Mohawk Valley in. She might have gone with her husband into the. Dakota, onto a Montana ranch, into the orchard. Northwest. But the natural choice of settings was. Iowa and Nebraska backgrounds known to me. Probably the question most often put to me in the twenty- . Abbie Deal was pictured in . With all the above introduction to my. I was at work. But in the physical realm. Nebraska, she was not Abbie Deal. For mother. never came to Nebraska until she was in her seventies, when she. And as I never lived in. Nebraska until after my marriage, whatever knowledge I have of. Some of them were still living when the. It. was only the authentic historical material that I lacked for the. Three books of mine had been published previously and I was. I came to. the decision to do that pioneer mother story which had been. Because one of the previous. At the close of that rather nervous. I asked all those listening. Nebraska. and who were interested in having them incorporated into a novel. Expecting perhaps a half dozen or so. I was amazed to see the letters, newspaper clippings. In addition to. this, there were the interviews with many old people closer at. For fourteen months I worked among that material sent me and. The necessity for the lengthy preparation was the. So it took that long to prepare anecdotes and events in. So thorough had been this. I could pick up any chapter and work on it. A certain reward for this rather. It was written in the so- called . There was some youth in it, but. There was no sophistication, for Abbie. Deal was of the soil. There was not even diversity of scene, for. Abbie was only a homemaker. That it has made new friends each year. If you start in one direction on the highway- -and travel. If you start in the. Cedartown is neither effete. It is beautiful only in the eyes of those who. Nebraska- born whose dwelling. There are weeks when drifting snow and sullen sleet hold the. Cedartown community in their bitter grasp. There are times when. There are periods of monotonous drouth and. The paved streets of Cedartown lie primly parallel over the. The substantial buildings of. Cedartown stand smartly over the dead ashes of Indian campfires. It was once a farm- house, but the acreage around it. Cedartown has grown out to meet it, so that a. The house stands well back from the road in a big yard with a. However, in the days when the Deals. All comers chose to enter by. Lombardy. poplars to the sitting- room porch. The house itself is without distinction. There were no. architects in the community when the first of its rooms were. And old Asy, with few comments and much. The result was weatherproof, sturdy and artless. When the. country was new, homes, like dresses, were constructed more for. Twice, onto the first wing- and- ell, old Asy, a little more. That form, now, is not unlike an. The parlor, protruding. The sitting- room to. If one's imagination is keen he can. The interior of the house, during Abbie Deal's lifetime, was a. A dull- finished, beautifully- proportioned radio. A. kitchen table, with a little declivity in one corner, in which. Doc Matthews had rolled pills in Civil War times, stood near. A. little crude oil- painting of a prairie sunset, which Abbie Deal. Mrs. I can melt them and run them. As a consequence, there was in the house the. One of the daughters, Mrs. Harrison Scannell Rhodes, on her. Chicago, protested once: ! But it's such a. jumbled combination of things. They're not antique. They're just. old. I've lived with spinning- wheels and. I'm. not antique. I'm just old. It represents me. And you will be quite right. The fact that. she lived there in the old home until her eightieth year, over. At. the time she was seventy, they began trying to pry her away from. When they had quite. Lincoln home with Margaret, old Abbie. Deal spoke. And kindly let me. Because a woman is old, has she no rights? Sometimes, on Sundays, the lane road. But not one son or daughter could. Something happened to Mother. Last. July on a late afternoon, while suppers cooked and children of. A neighbor woman found her lying across the foot. Of the five middle- aged children, seven grandchildren and. They all came. hastily in response to the messages. Within two hours' time, a. For the first time, when the cars turned into the. Lombardy poplars, no little old white- haired. That queer, solemn hush of death hung over the. It was in the quivering droop of the. They all gathered in the parlor with its modern radio and its. All of the children and several of the. Mackenzie Deal, the Omaha banker, was. John Deal, the Cedartown attorney and state legislator. Harrison Scannell Rhodes of Chicago, who had been. Omaha, was there. Frederick Hamilton Baker, of. Lincoln, and Miss Grace Deal, of Wesleyan University, were there. For a little. while there in the farm- home of their youth, they were but. When they had pulled themselves together, their greatest grief. In deepest remorse they blamed. Standing there together in common sorrow, they said. Poor Mother! So many of us . I think it was kind of. Maybe she didn't miss you. One time Grandma told me she was. And because. the first eight years of her life were interesting only to her. Abbie herself used. Chicago, which stood at the side of a lake where the. We find her then, at eight, in the year 1. Dubuque and the new home in Blackhawk County, Iowa, to which the. Abbie and a big sister of fifteen, Isabelle, were curled up. Sixteen- year- old James and. Dennie, the men of the party, were sleeping near. Because she had propped up a small section of the wagon's. Abbie could see out into the night. The darkness. was a heavy, animate thing. It hung thickly about the wagon. It seemed to see and hear and. It looked at Abbie with its stars, heard her whispered. Something about the queer closeness of it. Something about the hushed silence of it. She. summoned a picture of him into her mind, now,- -recalling the. Thinking of him so, she. Isabelle with an active elbow. Father were what they call an aristocrat. He lived. in Aberdeen, Scotland, and his folks, the Mackenzies, had a town. He belonged to the landed. We lost all our money. Father were a young man and never had to do. And he come to a. But don't stop me every. I always forget where I were. And a sixteen- year- old peasant girl come out of the house. Anyway it were Mother and she got a drink for him . A gentleman . Abbie, do you. Blackhawk County where we're going? I don't think so. Irish girls about. Abbie, don't you. I've got a little rosebush done up in a wet rag. I'm going to plant it out in Blackhawk. County.! It takes years and years for a rosebush to grow big. He come back to see Mother a- purpose. And he. come other days, even after that, and they would walk over the. And all the neighbors shook their heads and said they'd. You wouldn't understand. When you're as. old as me, you will. But just the same, Father did marry. Aberdeen to the big Mackenzie house. Mother. wore her best dress and her best head- shawl, but even then, all.
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