Monthly Archives: March 2016

Local Girl Makes Good: Grace Livingston Hill

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Some time back I sort of stumbled onto some local connections for Grace Livingston Hill, who once upon a time was far and away one of the best-selling authors in America.

*Grace was born in Wellsville in 1865. She lived in Campbell from September 1883 to September 1885 (ages 18 to 20) while her father was pastor of the Presbyterian church — now an antique mall. She also briefly attended Elmira College.

*Grace’s father was frequently troubled by severe problems with his throat — bad news for a preacher — and they moved to Florida after leaving Campbell, hoping for a better climate.

*There Grace wrote her first story, later expanded to a book, to earn enough money for a family trip to Chautauqua Institute. Her mother, her father, and especially her aunt were all published authors. Aunt Isabella Macdonald Alden actually published a story about a visit to Campbell. She wrote copiously, often under the pen name Pansy. Professional librarians sneered at works by “Pansy,” which did not meet their standards for Serious Literature. By the time Grace came along librarians were getting a little more relaxed, or at least more resigned.

*Which was a good thing! Because Grace’s output outshone the rest of the family combined, even when you include Grace’s daughter’s work. “GLH” published over a hundred books between 1887 (A Chautauqua Idyll) and 1947 (Mary Arden). The exact count can be argued a little, but I make it at 116 — Danielle Steel is now up to 125.

*Grace’s readers ran into eager millions, who persevered past (and finally overcame, or maybe overwhelmed) disgruntled librarians. Perhaps Jan Karon would be a rough contemporary parallel… Grace’s books had a spiritual tinge, or at least were wholesome, and her primary readers were women, many of whom still fondly recall reading long into the night, unable to tear away from the story and the characters.

*The professionally hip have been known to call her Grace Livingston Seagull, but she being dead (since 1947) yet speaketh. An author check of our own Southern Tier Library System catalogue reveals FOURTEEN PAGES of entries for Grace Livingston Hill. To compare with other hyper-prolific writers, the system shows 46 pages for Danielle Steel, 29 for John Grisham, 23 for Isaac Asimov, 13 for Frances Hodgson Burnett, 10 for P. G. Wodehouse, 7 for Robert Silverberg, 5 for Barbara Cartland, and 1 for Horatio Alger. (These figures include books, e-books, audio books, movies, etc.)

*Of course it’s not surprising that contemporary authors would be better represented, and that interest in the older ones fades away over time. So just for the fun of it, I decided to “equalize” all that through multiplying the number of pages in each listing by the number of years since the author’s death — using “1” as the multiple for the three living authors.

*In that case we get: Burnett 2096 “popularity points”; Hill 966; Asimov 552; Wodehouse 410; Alger 117; Cartland 80; Steel 46; Grisham 29; Silverberg 7.

*While this calculation puts Grace Livingston Hill well behind Frances Hodgson Burnett (most famous for The Secret Garden, A Little Princess/Sara Crewe, and Little Lord Fauntleroy, all of which have been made into multiple movies), it also puts her decidedly ahead of Asimov and far beyond any of the others. Not bad for someone who published her first book 129 years ago!

Ever-Returning Spring

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Grasses and willow twigs take on a green sheen… sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly. We go more days in a row without really cold temperatures. We finally notice that it hasn’t snowed for a while, and those odd piles of the stuff under evergreens, or in the corners of parking lots, take us by surprise. They look like archeological finds.

In our family spring’s approach used to herald itself to us by the flow of the maple sap, often in March or February. It foretold a lot of fun but also a lot of hours boiling… 40 gallons of sap plus 40 hours on the boil yields a single gallon of maple syrup. Cartwright’s and others are hosting long long lines. They’re cheerful waiting, even in the cold, for a taste. Because it tastes like spring.

But we haven’t made sugar for quite a few years now, so for us a spring wake-up call “sounds” at the bird feeder. After a few days of silently wondering, we each finally say it out loud. The goldfinches are taking on a faint yellow tinge or glow. Summer plumage is on the way, so spring must be coming soon.

Even before the goldfinch males flame forth in eye-assaulting yellow, and the females assume a much duller summer sheen, we’ll have taken down the bird feeders. Nowadays the Finger Lakes are bear country. Those of us who live outside the built-up section pretty much follow the Thanksgiving-to-Easter rule… only feed the birds when the bears are sound asleep hibernating. So empty feeders, or feeders put away, are signs of spring.

Before we let our feeder run dry this month, it was one day surrounded by brightly-epauletted red-wing blackbird males, scrounging for seeds that had fallen to the ground. In northern Vermont, it’s almost spring when the crows come back. Around here, it’s the red-wings.

In Bath, the eagles and the ospreys return, and start inspecting last season’s nests.

The ice on the little ponds melts, and one day it melts for the last time. It will take seven or eight months to freeze them again. Anglers get their gear out, clean it up, undo tangles, and do some overhauls. The town clerks get set for an onslaught of license buyers.

One morning we scrape the car for the last time, but if we had to name the date, we probably couldn’t. Suddenly we’ll just notice that we haven’t done it for a while, and smugly realize that we won’t, either.

About the end of the first week in February, we notice that the sun’s setting later. Hooray!

Snowdrops push up in gardens, at least in the gardens that get good sun, followed by crocuses. Color again! At last! Here and there, if you walk the woods or the fields, a green sprig or a flowering plant bursts forth, defying its still-moribund neighbors. Just about everything else was still dormant one day when I found a flabbergastingly flowering round-lobed hepatica on Mount Washington, along the Finger Lakes Trail. In Rhode Island a hundred years ago, people went arbutusing in spring.

The world unlocks, sometimes inconveniently. In Vermont the season after maple season is mud season.

For youngsters not too long ago, spring meant new clothes (often unwelcome, if truth be told), for Easter. Even today it still means palm branches (perhaps of construction paper), church breakfasts, chocolate rabbits, and marshmallow Peeps. Or else it means a big meal with a big family, ritual questions, and a glass for Elijah.

Musing on the death of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman wrote, “Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, and thought of him I love.” We hope spring brings you happier triggers, and happier memories.

Long-Time Editor Made His Mark

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Henry O. Elkins was in his glory in 1943. Bath was celebrating its 150th anniversary. He was celebrating his 50th anniversary as editor of the Courier. The Courier was celebrating its 100th anniversary. And since he was a good Presbyterian, he probably also enjoyed the 400th anniversary of the Westminster Assembly.

*The Courier was a Republican party paper back then, but Henry Elkins seems to have seen clearly that requirement for any small-town publisher: you have to boost your town. He attended annual meetings of the Steuben County Society, a convivial gathering of former area residents who’d made it big in New York City. (Glenn Curtiss was also a frequent guest.)

*Mr. Elkins was one of a long list of investors in a short-lived silk mill in Bath. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Elkins were founding members of the Monday Club, a literary society meeting in Bath. And he was an original investor when W. W. Babcock wanted to start making wooden churns… a company still in town, with a little change of focus, today. Even while publishing the Courier, he was postmaster for five years — the same year he became postmaster, he was also Master of the Masonic Lodge. He was chairman of the county Republican Committee — AND someplace in there he bought the paper.

*As a professional Republican he probably made sure the paper didn’t carry many flattering reports about Governor (and then President) Franklin D. Roosevelt, but in 1943 FDR sent him hearty congratulations on his golden jubilee anyhow. Roosevelt died two years later and Elkins followed him a year after that, first selling the Courier to Bob and Sterling Cole. Henry O. Elkins worked on the Courier for 55 years, from 1891 to 1946… 53 of those years as editor. He’s buried in Grove Cemetery.

Steuben Courier Bicentennial — How We Were, in 1958

Our sister paper in Bath… the Steuben Courier… traces its history back to 1816… so this is their bicentennial year! Those were the days when many newspapers were political party organs — an age that came to an end in 1958 when owners of the Republican Courier bought the Democratic Advocate and created the general-interest Steuben Courier-Advocate. What was life like in that year of 1958?

*Dwight D. Eisenhower was president. Averell Harriman was governor of New York, and Nelson A. Rockefeller was elected to succeed him. Frank E. Nicklaus was mayor of Bath, and Ford Hotaling was town supervisor. Charlie Reynolds was county sheriff.
*Charles De Gaulle became president of France, and Pope John XXIII was installed.
*Snow drifted up to fifteen feet from a major storm in February — kids in Prattsburgh could touch the telephone wires.
*Bobby Fischer won the U.S. chess championship at the age of 14. Baseball star Roy Campanella was paralyzed in a car crash. The U. S. launched its first satellite, and Mohawk hired America’s first African American flight attendant. The peace symbol was designed, and first used. Elvis Presley was drafted. To counter this augmented U. S. military, Nikita Khrushchev became premier of the Soviet Union.
*Vice-president Nixon’s car was stoned in Venezuela. The Beatles (then the Quarrymen) cut their first record. The Nautilus passed under the North Pole. NASA was created. The John Birch Society was founded. Ellen DeGeneres was born, as were Ice-T, Alec Baldwin, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Sharon Stone.
*The Salk Vaccine was available, but the Sabin Vaccine and the birth-control pill were not. There were no vaccines for mumps, measles, rubella, or chicken pox, and children lost a week or so of school for every one of them. They might have missed reading about Dick and Jane.
*You might do business at Cohn’s, Bath Plumbing, Murphy’s Appliances, Longwell Lumber, Grand Union, Taggart Insurance, or W. T. Grant, or Rockwell’s. You might eat out at Molly’s Diner, or at Chat-a-Wyle, or at Rambler’s Rest.
*No one had ever heard of Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or Supergirl. People DID know about Agway, Western Auto, Ben Franklin, Woolworth, and J. J. Newbury. On TV you might watch Jack Benny, Lassie, The Restless Gun, or American Bandstand. The Huckleberry Hound Show debuted for kids. Romper Room, Howdy Doody, and Captain Kangaroo were going strong, but Ding-Ding School was in reruns. IF you even got TV!

World War I in the Air

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Glenn Curtiss had war on his mind practically from the first time he took his seat in an airplane. He practiced dropping mock bombs onto a mock battleship on Keuka Lake. He flew an army officer who sat on the wing and fired his Springfield rifle at a ground target, despite fears that the recoil might throw the airplane out of control. As cadets cheered when he flew over West Point in 1910, he was brooding on how easy it would be to bomb the place.

*There had been crude uses of airplanes in battle before the Great War. At least three American pilots, flying airplanes from three manufacturers, had contracts to fly and drop bombs for various factions in Mexico. On one of our many invasions of Mexico, a Curtiss seaplane took minor damage from ground fire near Vera Cruz, for the first combat flight in U.S. history.

*Our Curtiss Jennys searched for Pancho Villa in Mexico. They never found him, and they all broke down. Their open cockpits flooded in thunderstorms, and they told horror stories about carving new propellers with a jackknife. (Just tall tales… you can’t do that.)

*Still, for most militaries, the only real use they could think of was scouting. In maneuvers off Cuba, Curtiss seaplanes spotted an approaching enemy fleet, giving their own fleet enough warning to meet the mock attack. Future admiral John Towers in an airplane spotted a submerged submarine commanded by future admiral Chester Nimitz, kicking off decades of very cranky relations between the two.

*In 1903, Wright brothers made first airplane flight. In 1906, Santos-Dumont made the first flight in Europe. In 1908, Curtiss and his associates made their first flights.

*But by 1909, when Curtiss flew spectacularly in the Grande Semaine d’Aviation in Reims, he was the only American pilot, and he had the only American-built airplane. How and why had the Europeans advanced so rapidly in just three years?

*Although some would argue otherwise, and although their effect may be overstated, I think that the Wright patent suits had some chilling effect on American research and development. But more important than what we DIDN’T do is what the Europeans DID do, and what circumstances drove them.

*Simply put, military aviation posed no threat to America. Neither Mexico nor Canada was likely to send swarms of warplanes across the border, and if they had they’d only have been threatening El Paso or Bar Harbor.

*All the strong European nations, on the other hand, had OTHER strong European nations right on their borders. They had to know what the guy on the other side of the hill was doing, and preferably they had to stay one jump ahead of him.

*This urgency only deepened, of course, once war actually got under way. So Europeans had an incentive, even a desperation, to innovate in their military aviation, where America did not. Even once Europe was at war, we still took a lackadaisical approach, with the result that with one exception, no American-designed airplanes were used in World War I combat, because none of them were equal to World War I combat. Our pilots flew British and French designs, such as SPADs.

*Besides airplanes, Europeans, especially Germans, were also ahead in airSHIPS… lighter-than-air craft, most famously the Zeppelins.
But what the powers were still lacking was a doctrine for the use of aircraft – a set of ideas as to how they were best employed. When doctrine was developed, it often embodied wooly thinking about this perplexing new invention. (Remember that almost all the top political and military leadership were born BEFORE the Civil War.)

*Even so, the First WORLD War was the first AIR war. And that’s the topic of the free presentation I’ll be giving for the next Steuben County Historical Society Winter Lecture, 4 PM Friday March 4 at Bath Fire Hall. Hope you’ll join us!