Women's History Month No. 9

"It was difficult, later, to think of a time when Betsy and Tacy had not been friends." Maud Hart Lovelace (1892 ~ 1980)

So, I have to write a bit about Mrs. Lovelace, whose name is like a Valentine, whose Betsy-Tacy books got me through many an otherwise cheerless day back when I was a dorky kid. My cousin and I both had sad moms & tense homes. We both agreed that the Betsy-Tacy books and the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder were our happy childhoods.

The series is set between the years 1897 and 1917, but I'm telling you that these are not just sweetie-nostalgia-clip-clop books. If you are looking for excellent books with terrific, fun-loving girl characters, if you are a fan of Meet Me in St. Louis, DO check out Maud's mostly autobiographical books about her young days in Mankato, a.k.a. Deep Valley, Minnesota. There it was that Maud Hart (Betsy Ray) became best friends with Frances "Bick" Kinney (Tacy - short for Anastasia - Kelly of the red ringlets).

If you do, you might find yourself wanting to find kindred spirits in the Betsy-Tacy Society and/or the Maud Hart Lovelace Society.

Why are there two fan organizations? Oh man, don't even ask. I will tell you that I got to talk to Mrs. Lovelace, got her phone number at the library, called her up and bless her heart, Mrs. Lovelace was perfectly nice about it when I was so goofy and too awe-struck to be sensible on the phone. She passed away not so very long afterwards - I have to believe this was mere coincidence as she was quite elderly - and went to heaven to be with Tacy and Tib and her beloved Joe (dreamboat author Delos Lovelace), Mama, Papa, and Margaret. But they're all ever young in those delightful books, blessed be.

Ella & Maud

So, two ladies, high in the ranks of the dear departed, share this day, a birthday. Maud Hart Lovelace was born on the 25th of April, in 1892, in Blue Earth County, Minnesota. Sure, the official name of her town, the one on the maps, is Mankato, but it's not, not really. To me and to the multitudes who delighted in the adventures of Betsy Ray (Maudie Hart), and her best friend, Tacy Kelly (Bickie Kinney), the town is and always will be Deep Valley. Maud H.L. somewhat fictionalized her growing up there in her series of "Betsy-Tacy" books. Lovely autonomous girl characters. Good-hearted families. They and Mrs. Wilder's books were the sustaining joy of my crabby, goofball childhood. Do, I hope you will, check out www.betsy-tacysociety.org Unlike Laura's and Mary's frontier tales (1872-1885), Betsy's and Tacy's small town adventures take place in the years between 1897 and 1917.

It was on this day in 1917 (eleven days after President Woodrow Wilson declared war on the Germans, plunging the U.S. into the Great War), that Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia. That's just for you to know and oh, how Ella would sing! "The only thing better than singing," Ella would say, "is more singing."

Happy Birthday, dear Maud and Ella up in the Blue Beyond, to the joy of my childhood eyes and to the joy of my grown-up ears.

Laura

Sometime on this day, April 10, or the next, back in 1962, my 11-year-old self was given the privilege of naming my new sister. I'm pretty sure I let the folks know I wasn't too happy about the prospect of a brand new bawly baby around the place, as you know if you read my somewhat autobiographical novel Just for You to Know [HarperCollins, 2006, recently reprinted - by me, i.e. Time Pie Press - in paperback because it's really good & I couldn't let it just vanish like a snowball in July, could I? No! – see www.cherylharness.com].

I'd been the only girl. In fact, despite my trio of little brothers, I did my best to be an only child. I comforted myself by reading about nice families, i.e. those to be found in books, particularly those written by the great Missouri author Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957). My cousin Myrna and I agreed that, for us (both daughters of sad, dysfunctional,who'd have been ever so much more cheerful and organized if they'd never procreated), our happy childhoods existed only in the adventures of the Ingalls and in Maud Hart Lovelace's book about Betsy Ray and Tacy Kelly. www.betsy-tacysociety.org

So it is that my sister's name is Laura. She would have been Laura Ingalls Harness, my our folks insisted on Jeanne for her middle name. And Jeannie is how she was known, beautiful, rosy, girl-baby with a cloud of curly dark hair. So jealous I was, dishwater-blond dork that I was, that I could have spit and I did, but not on the baby.

She shares a birthday with old Commodore Matthew Perry (1794), Lew Wallace (1827; author of Ben-Hur), snarky-brilliant Clare Boothe Luce (1903), and dashing Omar Sharif (oohbaybee). And she goes by Laura these days, my sister does, my best friend. Amazing how the calendar fixes everything.