Authors of Days Gone By: Maud Hart Lovelace

by Jan Drexler

"Hill Street was rightfully named. It ran straight up into a green hill and stopped. The name of the town was Deep Valley, and a town named Deep Valley naturally had plenty of hills. Betsy's house, a small yellow cottage, was the last house on her side of Hill Street, and the rambling white house opposite was the last house on that side. So of course it was very important. And it had been empty ever since Betsy could remember."

That's the way Maud Hart Lovelace began her tales of Betsy and Tacy. They, along with their school mates and families, were part of my imaginary world when I was a child.

I'm not the only one who loves to dabble my toes in Betsy and Tacy's world. The books have been so popular that the childhood homes of Betsy (aka Maud Hart) and Tacy (aka Bick Kenney) have been preserved and designated as National Literary Landmarks and are on the Mankato Register of Historic Places. The Betsy-Tacy Society (link here) actively preserves the homes, offers tours, maintains an on-line shop, and hosts events to celebrate this beloved author and her books.

Of course, Deep Valley is a fictional name. For many years I thought it was a fictional place...and then to my everlasting delight I discovered that it was real! Deep Valley is actually Mankato, Minnesota, a small city on the banks of the Minnesota River. The houses are real, Betsy's library is real, the churches, hotels, schools and other places she preserved in the pages of her books are real. Names were changed, but even her crowd of friends were real people.

Since we were going to be driving through Mankato on our way home from our son's wedding last week, I thought we might be able to stop by...and my dear husband thought we could if I wanted to.

IF I WANTED TO???

The man just smiled.

The Betsy-Tacy series of books (there are ten books in the series, as well as various other children's books that take place in "Deep Valley") follow Betsy and Tacy from the time they meet at Betsy's fifth birthday party until they are both married. They began as stories Maud Lovelace told to her daughter, and the idea for the first book was born.

Maud not only captured the life of a child growing up in a mid-western town at the turn of the century (that is, the 19th to the 20th centuries,) she preserved the traditions and day to day life of her family.

In writing about the books, Maud states, "Betsy is like me, except that, of course, I glamorized her to make her a proper heroine. The family life, customs, jokes, traditions are all true and the general pattern of the years is also accurate. It is a great joy to me to have that dear family between book covers."

I have to share two of my favorite things from the books.

The first one takes place here, on the bench at the top of Hill Street:

Betsy/Maud describes the bench in the first Betsy-Tacy book - the first time Betsy sees Tacy.

"She (Tacy) ran first to the hitching block, and bounced there on her toes for a minute, looking up at the sky and all around. Then she ran up the road to the point where it ended on the hill. Some long-gone person had placed a bench there. It commanded the view down Hill Street. The little girl climbed up on this bench and looked intently into the dusk." - from "Betsy-Tacy" by Maud Hart Lovelace

Last week, my dear husband and I climbed the hill and sat on the bench (now a replica - the original is long gone.) We could see down Hill Street (actually, Center Street) and as we sat there I told my husband all about Betsy, Tacy, Tib and their families. I told him about suppers on the bench, and the story Betsy told to help Tacy feel better on the terrible day that Tacy's baby sister Bea died. I told him about Betsy's dream of being a Writer (yes, with a capital W) and the impact Maud Hart Lovelace's stories made on my life.

The weather was perfect, the neighborhood was quiet, and we were in no hurry. It was a delight to immerse myself in Betsy's world for a time.

The second thing is a family tradition that Maud wrote about in the books that take place during Betsy's high school years.

"Sunday night lunch was an institution at the Ray House. They never called it supper; and they scorned folks who called it tea. The drink of the evening was coffee, which Mrs. Ray loved, and although Betsy and Margaret still took cocoa, their loyalty was to coffee for her sake.
The meal was prepared by Mr. Ray. This was a custom of many years standing...
"He got out a wooden breadboard, and a sharp knife which he always proceeded to sharpen further. He sliced the bread in sensibly thick slices and he never cut off the crusts. Mr. Ray's opinion of sandwiches without crusts matched Mrs. Ray's opinion of tea on Sunday nights. The butter had been put to soften, and now around the bread-board he ranged everything he could find in the icebox...
"The onion sandwiches were most popular of all with the boys who flocked to the Ray house.
Mr. Ray didn't mind company for Sunday night lunch; in fact, he liked it. The larger his audience, the more skill and ingenuity he displayed in his sandwich combinations...
"Old and young gathered in the dining room around the table beneath the hanging lamp. The big platter of sandwiches was placed in the center. A cake sat on one side, a dish of pickles on the other. There was the pot of steaming coffee, of course; but the sandwiches were king of the meal...
"Often the crowd spilled over to the pillows ranged around the fire. Almost everyone ended there, with a second cup of coffee and his cake. Talk flourished, until Julia went to the piano. Mr. Ray always made her play, 'Everybody Works but Father.'" - from "Heaven to Betsy" by Maud Hart Lovelace 

Are you as charmed as I am by that description of the Ray family's tradition with their friends? What a lovely glimpse into years gone by!

In this Yankee Belle post, I had planned to take you farther on our trip. When we left Mankato, we stopped at Walnut Grove, Minnesota and De Smet, South Dakota - both locations of many of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. But this post is long enough, so we'll save Laura, Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie, Grace, and their good old bulldog Jack for next week. I hope you'll be back for that look into "Authors of Days Gone By!"

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.