Betsy and the Great World and Betsy's Wedding
Page 41
The Fort Snelling contingent had arrived just a few hours earlier, for they had only a two-day leave. Betsy, Tacy, and Carney had come to Deep Valley the day before, and Betsy had many gaieties to describe as the Rays and the Willards drove to the Muller house through the late afternoon sunshine.
Jean had given a shower for Tib. It was strictly for ladies, but Cab had attended, beaming, in a uniform.
“Spickest, spannest private in the U.S. Army!” Jean had declared, patting his arm.
“Jean’s going back to North Dakota to stay with her parents,” Betsy reported. “And she says the baby will come before Cab gets back, if the Kaiser doesn’t hurry and give in.”
Betsy and Tacy had stayed with Cab and Jean, for the Muller house was overflowing with relatives.
“And this morning,” Betsy said, “Tacy and I went off by ourselves. We went up to Hill Street and saw where we used to live.”
Hand in hand, they had stared at the two houses, now so surprisingly small, which faced each other at the foot of the green billowy hills. They had drunk at Tacy’s old pump. At the cottage which once had belonged to the Rays, they had looked up fondly into the backyard maple, where Betsy used to write her stories and keep them in a cigar box.
Hand in hand, they had climbed the Big Hill which rose behind Betsy’s old house. How many times they had climbed it—with Tib along, of course—taking picnics or exploring or just picking flowers! Today they had picked wild roses, pink and very fragrant, which were growing everywhere.
Reaching the top, they had sat down in the grass, just as they always used to do, to survey the town in its broad valley. They had particularly liked to look down on their own rooftops and the tower of Tib’s chocolate-colored house.
“We thought that was the most wonderful house in the whole wide world,” said Tacy.
“Because it had front and back stairs, and a tower room, and colored glass in the front door.”
Joe was stopping the Overland in front of it now. As the Rays and the Willards went up the walk they saw a service flag in the tower-room window. It bore two stars, one for Fred and one for Hobbie who dashed up to take charge of Margaret.
If Cab was the army’s spickest and spannest soldier, Hobbie was its proudest recruit. He somehow managed, although he was short, with embarrassing dimples, and a uniform which fitted nowhere, to look hard and military.
“The day that boy lands in France,” said Joe, “the Kaiser had better start ducking.”
The door with the ruby glass in it was open, and again music sang a welcome. A three-piece orchestra was playing in the hall where Mr. Muller, stout and jovial, and tranquil Mrs. Muller, greeted them.
Betsy hurried her parents and Joe into the study to see the wedding presents. Jack had given Tib an electric sewing machine.
“It was all she wanted,” Betsy said. “And she’s just ecstatic about it.”
The study glittered with china and crystal, silver bowls and platters, embroidered linens from relatives of Jack in England. But Betsy was called away to join the receiving line in the flower-filled, round, front parlor.
Tib’s hand was tucked into the crook of Jack’s olive drab arm. Tall and straight, he smiled down at her and she smiled back, when she wasn’t being kissed. Beneath the point-lace veil and her golden cloud of hair she was rosy from being kissed.
The bridesmaids were busy greeting the visiting relatives. Betsy was pleased to see Tib’s Milwaukee relatives again. Grosspapa and Grossmama Hornik, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Aunt Dolly was fortyish now, but still very fair.
There were old friends to talk with, too. Dennie, engaged to Winona. The siren Irma and her young doctor husband. Katie and Leo, who were teasing Sam about the mustache.
“Doesn’t he look elegant?” Carney crowed. “But I have to be darned careful when I kiss him, not to stab myself.”
At supper, most of the old Crowd squeezed in at the Bride’s table. There were plenty of tables—in the spacious back parlor and all around the porch, which had a view of the sunset. Waiters hurried hospitably everywhere with cold turkey and ham and potato salad and hot, scalloped dishes and fresh rolls and pickled herring and anchovies and olives. But at the Bride’s table, when it was time for toasts to be offered, Jack’s brother officers jumped to their feet.
“Draw, SABER!” And the sabers flashed and crossed above Tib’s head while Fred gave an Army toast to the bride.
“Do it again!” she cried, with happy laughter, and they did.
Using Jack’s sword, and with Jack’s strong hand guiding hers, Tib cut the wedding cake. There were favors inside!
Dancing began in the parlors and out on the porch, where the sunset had faded now. The evening sky looked like the inside of a shell. Jack and Tib led off, and then Tib turned to her father while Jack sought smiling Mrs. Muller. Soon everyone was dancing. Mr. and Mrs. Ray danced, he like a stately ambassador, she like a leaf in a breeze.
The older guests began to go home, except for the Muller relatives who gathered in the dining room. They were laughing and talking with Tib’s father and mother over steins of beer. Betsy and Joe, dancing past, paused to look in.
The speech in the dining room was German because Grosspapa and Grossmama could not understand English very well. But in that enemy tongue….
“To the Herr Doktor Wilson!” cried Grosspapa Hornik, raising a foaming mug.
“Und Teddy!” put in Grossmama.
“Ja, to the Herr Teddy!”
“Teddy!” and the steins banged.
“It does something to my heart,” Betsy whispered to Joe who answered soberly, “What a wonderful country we have!”
They started dancing again. Jack was dancing only with Tib now, and Joe only with Betsy, and Harry with Tacy, and Sam with Carney, and Cab with Jean, and so on down the line. They sang as they danced. “Poor Butterfly!” “Pretty Baby.” “The Sunshine of Your Smile!”
“K-K-K-Katie
Beautiful Katie”
How Hobbie—that hard, dimpled, military man—roared to that one, swinging Margaret!
They sang and danced to the war tunes—to “Tipperary,” and “Pack up Your Troubles,” and “Good Morning, Mr. Zip, Zip, Zip!” They were dancing to “The Long Long Trail” when Joe danced Betsy out to the porch, into the starlight and the warm June darkness, scented with honeysuckle.
“There’s a long long trail a-winding
Into the land of my dreams….”
She was in the land of dreams now, Betsy thought. The future and the past seemed to melt together.
She could feel the Big Hill looking down as the Crowd danced at Tib’s wedding in the chocolate-colored house.
Maud Hart Lovelace and Her World
(Adapted from The Betsy-Tacy Companion: A Biography
of Maud Hart Lovelace by Sharla Scannell Whalen)
Maud Palmer Hart circa 1906
Estate of Merian Kirchner
MAUD HART LOVELACE was born on April 25, 1892, in Mankato, Minnesota. Like Betsy, Maud followed her mother around the house at age five asking such questions as “How do you spell ‘going down the street’?” for the stories she had already begun to write. Soon she was writing poems and plays. When Maud was ten, a booklet of her poems was printed; and by age eighteen, she had sold her first short story.
The Hart family left Mankato shortly after Maud’s high school graduation in 1910 and settled in Minneapolis, where Maud attended the University of Minnesota. In 1917, she married Delos W. Lovelace, a newspaper reporter who later became a popular writer of short stories.
The Lovelaces’ daughter, Merian, was born in 1931. Maud would tell her daughter bedtime stories about her childhood in Minnesota, and it was these stories that gave her the idea of writing the Betsy-Tacy books. Maud did not intend to write an entire series when Betsy-Tacy, the first book, was published in 1940, but readers asked for more stories. So Maud took Betsy through high school and beyond college to the “great world” and marriage. The final book in the
series, Betsy’s Wedding, was published in 1955.
Maud Hart Lovelace died on March 11, 1980. But her legacy lives on in the beloved series she created and in her legions of fans, many of whom are members of the Betsy-Tacy Society and the Maud Hart Lovelace Society. For more information, write to:
The Betsy-Tacy Society
P.O. Box 94
Mankato, MN 56002-0094
www.betsy-tacysociety.org
The Maud Hart Lovelace Society
277 Hamline Avenue South
St. Paul, MN 55105
www.maudhartlovelacesociety.com
About Betsy and the Great World
IN THE FICTIONAL WORLD of Betsy-Tacy, there is a long gap between the eighth and ninth books in the series. At the end of Betsy and Joe, Betsy Ray and Joe Willard have just graduated from high school and are looking forward to facing “the Great World,” together. But Betsy and the Great World opens with the twenty-one-year-old Betsy embarking on a tour of Europe by herself. On her first night aboard the S.S. Columbic, Betsy recalls the events of the past several years—and her fictional life during that period closely matches Maud’s real-life experiences.
The years between Maud’s high school graduation in 1910 and her trip abroad in 1914 were eventful ones, filled with change. Maud enrolled in the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1910, but she withdrew shortly after beginning her freshman year, on November 22. As Maud explained in a letter to a friend: “I didn’t adjust to college very well. I was just recovering from an appendix operation…. When I went home for Thanksgiving my family saw that I wasn’t well and they kept me at home until after Christmas when I went to California, and that was a very happy experience.” It was in California that Maud sold her first story, for ten dollars. It was called “Number Eight,” and it appeared in a magazine-style Sunday supplement to the Los Angeles Times on June 4, 1911.
While Maud was recuperating in California, her family moved to Minneapolis. The March 29, 1911, edition of the Mankato Free Press reported, “Mr. Hart has been a resident of Mankato for twenty-eight years and Mrs. Hart for a longer period. They are highly respected and have many friends who will regret their going away. Mr. and Mrs. Hart did not want to move, but the fact that their daughter Maud is attending the university and Miss Kathleen is interested in matters musical in Minneapolis, and the further fact that Mr. Hart is on the road for Foote-Schultze & Co. determined the question of their removal.” Luckily, Bick’s (Tacy’s) family moved to Minneapolis shortly thereafter, so Maud still had her best friend nearby.
Estate of Merian Kirchner
This photo of Maud and Bick was taken on a picnic along the Mississippi River.
Maud returned to the “U” in the fall of 1911. Like Betsy, she joined her sister’s sorority, Gamma Phi Beta. But sorority life was only one of Maud’s interests. She was the Society Editor/Woman’s Editor of the college newspaper, the Minnesota Daily. And though she hadn’t met Delos, her future husband, yet, Maud led a very active social life. The character Bob Barhydt is based on Maud’s sweetheart, Russell McCord, to whom she was engaged. Maud wrote in her unpublished memoir, Living with Writing, “My fiancé and I were always getting engaged, [but] we never got married.”
Estate of Merian Kirchner
Maud was once engaged to Russell McCord, who inspired the character Bob Barhydt.
Maud also continued to write. One of her stories, entitled “Her Story,” appeared in Minnesota Magazine in May 1912, and was praised by the famous professor Dr. Maria Sanford. The college paper described it as “the strongest piece of fiction in the number and…unusual in college work. In simplicity, in directness, emotional power, and skill in the structure, it is superior to the average story found in our best magazines.” Maud finished the academic year on this high note, but attended only one more semester, and left college for good on December 14, 1912.
Mr. Hart was inspired with the idea of sending Maud to Europe. She recalled, “My father [decided] I would be helped in my writing by a year abroad, which was quite true.” So Maud set sail from Boston on Saturday, January 31, 1914, on the S.S. Canopic. And as she wrote in a letter to a friend in 1973, “I wrote that book [Betsy and the Great World] from my letters home, of which Mother had saved every one.” When Maud quotes one of Betsy’s letters home, she is quoting from one of her own letters (or from one of Kathleen’s)—much as she quoted actual diary entries in the high school books. So it is not surprising that Betsy’s experiences during the trip—from the people she meets to the places she stayed—parallel Maud’s in so many ways.
Collection of Sharla Scannell Whalen
Maud sailed for Europe on the S.S. Canopic.
Collection of Sharla Scannell Whalen
Maud wrote many letters home on this stationery.
Maud on board the Canopic
Estate of Merian Kirchner
In Munich, Maud stayed at the Pension Schweiz, which was very much like the fictional Pension Geiger. There she became friends with a Swiss girl named Else as well as a young baroness named Hertha von Einem. And just like Betsy, Maud had to sneak into a suite occupied by two German officers, with servants as “bodyguards,” in order to take a bath. In a letter home, she lamented: “Oh, those officers seem to be of most domestic habits! Night after night they stayed at home with watchful eyes upon the bathroom. They guarded their treasure with dog-like fidelity, but I was biding my time….” It was also in Munich that Maud learned that “Emma Middleton Cuts Cross Country,” had been sold to Ainslee’s magazine. Maud was paid seventy-five dollars for the story, which was published in June 1915.
After brief trips to Sonneberg, Nuremberg, and Oberammergau, Maud arrived in Venice, where she stayed at the pension of the Conte family and became good friends with their son, Paolo. Maud wrote to her family, “Of course, I rather like him or I wouldn’t have started curling my hair again.” But like Betsy, tenderhearted Maud burst into tears when she turned down his proposal. In a letter to her family marked “Personal” (meaning that it was not to be circulated to family and friends, as her other letters were), Maud described her relationship with Paolo—and the description mirrors Betsy’s experience with Marco in chapter eighteen of the book almost exactly.
Estate of Merian Kirchner
Maud’s Swiss friend, Else, who inspired the character Tilda
Hertha von Einem, aka “Helena von Wandersee”
Estate of Merian Kirchner
Maud feeding pigeons at St. Mark’s
Estate of Merian Kirchner
After leaving Venice, Maud visited Switzerland and Paris. But she didn’t count either as a place in which she had really lived. In a letter written to a friend in 1962, Maud described her pension in Paris as “crowded and unsatisfactory, full of American tourists. I saw [Paris] very well, didn’t miss anything, and I’ve always been thankful for that…but I didn’t really live there.” It is interesting to note that Maud’s daughter, Merian, actually wrote chapter nineteen of the book, which describes Betsy’s visit to Paris. In a 1952 interview with the Minneapolis Daily Tribune, Maud remarked that Merian “can pitch in and write a chapter beautifully. In fact, she can out-Betsy-Tacy Betsy-Tacy.”
Betsy and Marco at St. Mark’s
Paolo Conte inspired the character Marco Regali
Estate of Merian Kirchner
Estate of Merian Kirchner
Maud wearing her new hat on Fusina
Maud spent the final months of her trip in London, at Mrs. Brumwell’s boarding house at 5 Taviton Street, where she felt very much at home. Maud later wrote: “I didn’t see the British Museum (it was closed on account of the suffragettes)…. I loved the galleries, Westminster, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Hampstead Heath. We went boating on the Thames. (Taking tea along.)…Even in the movies, they serve tea!”
For Maud as for Betsy, the beginning of World War I meant that the journey had to end. Maud returned home on the American ship the S.S. St. Louis, which left Liverpo
ol on September 4, 1914, and arrived in New York on September 12. Having experienced the great world, it was time for both Maud and Betsy to learn about a whole new one—marriage.
The Crew at Mrs. Brumwell’s boarding house in London. Maud is in the center row, fourth from the left
Estate of Merian Kirchner.
About Betsy’s Wedding
THE BETSY-TACY BOOKS are so very autobiographical that it is sometimes hard to believe that one very important plotline—Betsy and Joe’s relationship from their first meeting in Heaven to Betsy to the day they get married in Betsy’s Wedding—was entirely made up. In real life, Maud did not meet her future husband, Delos Wheeler Lovelace, until 1917, well after her high school days. As Maud said: “Delos came into my life much later than Joe Willard came into Betsy’s, and yet he is Joe Willard to the life.” Maud made sure of this—she asked her husband to give her a description of his boyhood before she began work on the high school books, and then gave his history to Joe. Their daughter, Merian, wrote: “I have no trouble accepting the plot of Betsy and Joe as pure fiction…. Because it’s a story Maud made up about how she and Delos might have met, it’s especially precious.” But readers may be interested to know the real story behind their courtship and marriage.
Delos Wheeler Lovelace was born in Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1894. Like Joe’s parents, Delos’ father was a lumberjack and his mother, Josephine Wheeler Lovelace, was a dressmaker. She didn’t die when Delos was a young boy, though, as Joe’s mother did. According to Merian: “Maud was very fond of her mother-in-law, and Aunt Ruth’s personality is probably modeled on Josephine’s at least to some extent.”