Bess Streeter AldrichBesprekingen

This book is the sequel to A Lantern in Her Hand, part of the Bison Books by this author. The story takes place in Nebraska during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is the story of life with its loves and disappointments. The title is taken from advice from Grandma Deal to Laura, her granddaughter, that life is where "spirit" takes one, whether it's the farm or the big city. The words in the book were beautiful and descriptive. Will definitely read the others if I can find them at a reasonable price. 352 pages½

On my second reread of this book, I enjoyed it immensely, and am just as pleased by the pairing of the two main characters. Also, now I know what Ak-sar-ben means, which I did not know when I first read it. :) Not that it comes up a lot. But it's mentioned.

I did feel a smidge more frustration on this reread with Laura and her inability to know herself.

Laura, a third-generation resident of Cedartown, Nebraska, begins the novel at about age 12. She is mourning the loss of her recently deceased grandmother, the person she felt closest to. Laura makes a promise to herself that she will do all the things her grandmother had to skip. That is, rather than settling down to a humdrum domestic life, she will see the world. She will write books. She will be somebody.
Fast-forward a few years, and Laura is at university in Lincoln. She is still single-minded about her career, but she is also drawn into friendship with Allen Rinemiller, a university student from her hometown. After her grandmother, he has been the only person she feels she can really be herself with. The rest of the novel is concerned with Laura's struggle between the life she thinks she wants, and the more subtle value of a loving relationship and a home.

This book is a real love letter to Nebraska and its settlers. It was published in 1931, and it is a sequel to "A Lantern in Her Hand," which details the entry of several pioneer families to the Midwest. By the time "A White Bird Flying" picks up, we are well into the third generation of those families, and it is interesting to see how priorities change from generation to generation.
The families in the preceding novel were primarily concerned with matters of actual survival, and then, as stability was reached, with beginning a community. By the time their grandchildren reach maturity, their opportunities look very much more like what we have today...questions of career, education, culture, social status, and money.
Bess Streeter Aldrich uses this book to stand up for the value of hard work and family.

It has some amusing lines, too, and some great bits of descriptive writing. I'll include a sample of each:

To top one of eastern Nebraska's low rolling hills in October and see the entire hollow bowl of the world fitting in the entire hollow bowl of the skies is to glimpse a bit of Infinity.

"Look at your own Aunt Isabelle Rhodes in Chicago. Hasn't she been a professional singer and music teacher ever since she and Harrison Rhodes were married?"
"Yes, but they're different. They work together. He composes and she sings."
"Well, so could we. You'd write, and I'd sharpen your pencils."


I've read the preceding book in this set once or twice, and it is certainly helpful for getting to know the background of the families, but I like A White Bird Flying as a standalone. I think people get more interesting as you move past the struggle-for-survival bits of history and start to have time and energy for the problems of the heart and mind.

This is the second novel that I've read by Aldrich. The first was A Lantern in her Hand, the novel for which Aldrich is best known. I won The Lieutenant's Lady from a blog give-away in 2010 and read it shortly after visiting Aldrich's house for the first time in March 2011 (I wrote a blog post about the visit that you can read here: http://bit.ly/dRNYhJ).

The Lieutenant's Lady is about a young woman, Linnie, from the East who's visiting relatives in Omaha, Nebraska in the late 1860s shortly after Nebraska gains statehood. Omaha is booming, the Civil War is over, and the US Army has turned its attention to making the western lands safe for white settlement. On her way home to the East, Linnie ends up traveling up the Missouri River to tell her cousin's fiance, a lieutenant in the Army stationed at a remote fort, that he's lost his betrothed to another man. Our heroine is already smitten with the young lieutenant. He's understandably upset when Linnie shows up rather than his bride-to-be, but he marries Linnie the day she arrives for the sake of her safety and saving face. They eventually fall in love while dealing with the hardships and dangers of Army life on the plains.

The story is based on the diary of an Army wife that someone sent to Aldrich--she was known for collecting pioneer stories to authenticate her fiction. I'd love to read the original diary to see what Aldrich made up and what she may have left out. The novel was published in 1942 and I wonder if Aldrich chose this story as her subject due to the pro-army feeling she was be able to create.

I enjoyed The Lieutenant's Lady and recommend it to readers who are interested in the historical time period and/or western literature. It's the kind of book I loved to read and deconstruct as an undergraduate. Racial attitudes, service vs greed, and gender issues abound in this novel.

Based on a true story of a woman who marries an army man during the post-Civil War battles with the Indians in the Western Territories. She travels with him from fort to fort, quickly adapting to the harsh conditions, but never really accepting her situation as permanent. All the while she struggles with the belief that her husband still pines for his first love, her cousin, until the very end, when he finally declares his devotion to his wife. An enjoyable, quick read, and--because it was written in 1942--wonderfully free from modern commentary.

I brought this book to the gym with me the other day and an acquaintance asked if it "was a love story?" I got a little self-conscious and said "no" but I've rethought that answer and would now have to say yes. It is Aldrich's story of her love of the Midwest, her pioneer forebearers, and family.

It chronicles the history of the American Midwest through the Martin family (parents, 2 boys, 7 girls) and their neighbors. No one escapes tragedy. But neither is it bereft of joy and humor. The author, through her characters, offers up wise thoughts on community, death, grief, war, love, historical giants like Lincoln, and duty. You can't help but want the best for this goodnatured family which, I understand, was largely based on Aldrich's grandparents.

Aldrich is often overlooked and unknown. But this is one of the underrecognized gems of any library and I'm glad it made its way to mine.

There are some issues with race (there are a couple of potential Native American scares and references to African slaves) that could be cleaned up if you're touchy about that sort of thing. I am but I take umbrage more at the Scotts for their errors than I do the Martins.

Based on a true story, I found this book to be an absolutely fascinating tale of a woman. I leaned towards a 4.5 rating because there was a point when Norman and Linnie should have hashed it out. I understand why communication was limited for a large portion of the novel, but that last chapter deserved some sort of communication resolution. I was so enthralled by the rest that I chose to overlook it. The historic tidbits were juicy, as were the sly glimpses into characters like Henry. I'm glad I found a library that owned it.

I've always loved Ms. Aldrich's homey tales of average folks and this is no exception. Consider me charmed.

This book is just like a quilt. Full of patterns, old-fashioned warmth, sprinkled with every possible emotion and a just a touch of romance. I loved it. Perhaps it is the closest thing to [b:Song of Years|151787|Song of Years|Bess Streeter Aldrich|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1460378165s/151787.jpg|146507] that Aldrich has done.

Delicate little old-fashioned tale that charms in spite of its date.

Some of the stories got repetitive (you could tell where her mind was when she wrote them), but she still had the deft prose that I feel in love with when I read Song Of Years. Well worth revisiting her--it brought back lovely memories.

This is the 3rd book I've read by Aldrich and I just love this author. She writes about either pioneer life (1870-1900) or small town life (1900-1920). This particular book was about Mrs. Mason, a woman with 5 children and a banker husband. It told of the trials and the happy times of the family. Mrs. Mason is witty as well as wise. Just a delight! 269 pages

A beautiful book set in Nebraska during the 1920's. The author's writing is superb and the characters she creates are real and multi-layered. I appreciated how the characters actually care about others and act accordingly. 352 pages

Touched a cord in my heart.

Taught me that change needs to come and can be as good as the memories.

In A Lantern in Her Hand, Abbie accompanies her family to the soon-to-be-state of Nebraska. There, in 1865, she marries and settles into her own sod house. The novel describes Abbie's years of child-raising, of making a frontier home able to withstand every adversity.

A Disciplined writer knowledgeable about true stories of pioneer days in Nebraska, Bess Streeter Aldrich conveys the strength of everyday things, the surprise of familiar faces, and the look of the unspoiled landscape during different seasons. Refusing to be broken by hard experience, Abbie sets a joyful example for her family—and for her readers.

Fun, good but doesn't compare to Willa Cather in my world...but I LOVE Willa Cather...so....

A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich is a sequel to A Lantern In Her Hand, but this book is about her granddaughter, Laura. In fact, Abby passes away in the opening chapter of this book. Laura was the grandchild that was closest to Abby, she visited her everyday and feels a great emptiness in her life when her grandmother passes. Abby understood Laura and encouraged her dreams and her ambitions to become a writer. As Laura grows, she decides that marriage will not be for her, she will instead concentrate on becoming an author.

Laura stays true to her dream all through high school and university. She makes plans to leave Nebraska and go to New York but during the final summer months before she is to leave, she falls in love with a local boy, Allan. Allan wants her to stay, marry him and become a farmer’s wife. As this is an era when married women did not have careers, she knew it would have to be one thing or the other. Then during a horrific summer storm, she realizes just how much she does love Allan. She turns to her memories of her grandmother to help her make her final decision.

I found this book to be a charming and sentimental story. It highlights the issues that women were dealing with in the early years of the 20th century. This quiet, gentle read makes me appreciate that although women are still striving for equality, at least we are able to have marriage, family and a career today. Originally published in 1931, A White Bird Flying is another tribute to her home state and the author’s ideals of hard work and family.½

A straight up sappy wild-west romance. Just what I needed at this time! Originally published in 1939 it tells the story of settlers to Iowa, Indian scares, the Civil War, church socials, one room school houses, and romance. It was very entertaining and a good read. Will look for some more of her writings, but they seem to be difficult to find. 429 pages½

Cathy Tallon

10 mins ·

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Finished a classic from Nebraska author Bess Streeter Aldrich. I don't think I'd read it before.
She was not pretty. One could scarcely say what it was that set her apart from the others, -humor, vitality, capability, or some unknown characteristic which combined them all. It was as though she said: "Well, here I am. Let's begin."

A Lantern in her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich was a book that I read and loved when much younger and I was looking forward to reading about the life of pioneer Abby Deal once again. Born in Iowa in the mid-1800’s, she and her husband Will moved to Nebraska and homesteaded there. This book paints an accurate picture of the hardships encountered and endurance required in pioneer life. As a woman, Abby was constantly sacrificing her dreams for those of her husband and children, starting out with her husband overriding her concerns about striking out on their own, leaving friends and family behind.

I could certainly see why I loved this book when I first read it as it is truly a heartwarming story of a pioneer family, but as an adult, I would have liked a little more depth and insight into the characters. Abby Deal is first and foremost a woman of strength and tenacity, meeting and overcoming all obstacles that were placed in front of her. I love the name of this book as it paints a vivid picture of how the pioneer women would step outside in the dark with a lantern to guide their menfolk home across the flat prairies.

A Lantern in Her Hand is a simple story that highlights the choices and sacrifices that pioneer women were faced with. Originally published in 1928, the author based Abby on her own mother and A Lantern in Her Hand is obviously a tribute to her.

Short works of fiction by pioneer woman, Bess Aldrich.

Some very humorous, touching Christmas stories from the prairie from the late 1800's to the 1940's.

Corny perennial truths.
Noted during my 1980's attempt to read every book in my small town library.

Addie Deal is a young bride with a toddler and a new baby on the way when her husband announces that the best way for them to get out from under his parents’ thumb is to move to Nebraska. There, she and her husband Will give their five children a happy upbringing despite constant hard work and privation, especially in the early years. They experience, for instance, an actual plague of locusts. All of Abbie’s early dreams of “doing something” with her voice, playing the organ, learning to paint, or writing gradually wither and come to nothing. The compensation is watching, in later life, the success of both her children and the state of Nebraska, which she has seen grhinkw from almost nothing.

Frankly, I think this book’s time has passed. It was hard not to feel that the best years of Abbie’s life were used up in grindingly hard work and what is supposed to be her reward, the comfort of her later years, seemed inadequate—most of her children seem not to entirely understand her and vice versa. Even her dream of seeing her grandmother’s pearls worn by a daughter or granddaughter in full glory winds up falling rather flat. The marriage between Abbie and Will is a nice enough love story in its way, but he never provided for her as she deserved. On the other hand, the relationship between Abbie and her neighbor Christine Reinmuller, a stern immigrant with braids wrapped around her head, is one of the most interesting parts of the book. Thrown together by circumstances and their dependence on each other, their friendship spans nearly sixty years even though they have little in common and are hardly kindred spirits.½

35. The Cutters by Bess Streeter Aldrich (read in 1939) I am sure this is a book an older sibling brought home from the school library, and I read it with some appreciation