-
Journey into Christmas
Bess Streeter Aldrich
The true meaning of Christmas emerges in these stories about reunited families, good fellowship, and restored faith. This is not to say that all is sugar candy. The mother in the title story faces a lonely Christmas in an empty house—but then something quite ordinary but miraculous happens. In "The Drum Goes Dead," a small-town bank cashier, a solid citizen and sterling friend, is dispirited by hard times until he discovers, through his own resources, that it is indeed a wonderful life. Here are nine other holiday stories, by turns dramatic, humorous, and inspirational. The closing piece recalls the author's childhood in Iowa. -- Amazon.com
-
The Lieutenant's Lady
Bess Streeter Aldrich
When Linnie Colsworth came from the East to visit relatives in Omaha, she was plunged into a wider, more hazardous world than she had ever known. In the wake of the Civil War, land seekers were pouring into the West and displacing the Indian tribes. Although Omaha was beginning to put on social airs, Nebraska was still a raw territory. Not one to take shelter and spend her days sewing and serving tea, Linnie traveled up the Missouri to deliver a "Dear John" message to her cousin's fiancé, a handsome lieutenant--and in a wink became the wife of this stranger. They came to love and trust each other, and their survival on the frontier required nothing less, and a good deal more, from them than that. Their harrowing story is based on the diary of an actual army wife who recorded the daily weather-internal and external. -- Amazon.com
-
The Drum Goes Dead
Bess Streeter Aldrich
A very short, sweet story. Set in the late Depression years, a good man dreads the return of Christmas in the face of hardships and sorrow he sees around him. -- Amazon.com
-
Song of Years
Bess Streeter Aldrich
The state of Iowa was still young and wild when Wayne Lockwood came to it from New England in 1851. He claimed a quarter-section about a hundred miles west of Dubuque and quickly came to appreciate widely scattered neighbors like Jeremiah Martin, whose seven daughters would have chased the gloom from any bachelor's heart. Sabina, Emily, Celia, Melinda, Phoebe Lou, Jeanie, and Suzanne are timeless in their appeal—too spirited to be preoccupied with sermons, sickness, and sudden death. However, the feasts, weddings, and holiday celebrations in Song of Years are shadowed by all the rigors and perils of frontier living. Bess Streeter Aldrich's novel, originally published in 1939, captures the period in Iowa of Indian scares and county-seat wars, as well as the political climate preceding the Civil War. -- Amazon.com
-
The Man Who Caught the Weather, and Other Stories
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Stories: The man who caught the weather.- The day of retaliation.- Alma, meaning "To cherish".- Bid the tqpers twinkle.- Trust the Irish for that.- How far is it to Hollywood?- Low lies his bed.- Will the romance be the same?- Another brought gifts.- Juno's swans.- It's never too late to live.- The mountains look on Marathon.- Welcome home, Hal!- The silent stars go by.
-
Spring Came on Forever
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Acclaimed for her 1928 novel A Lantern in Her Hand, Bess Streeter Aldrich became one of the most widely read interpreters of the prairie pioneer experience. In 1935, she published her masterpiece, Spring Came on Forever, a novel of two Nebraska pioneer families from settlement to the 1930s. Elsewhere an artist of the romance, here Aldrich turns romance on its head. The heroine is Amalia Holmsdorfer, one of a band of German immigrants who settle on the prairie. From her late teens to her mid-eighties she confronts and defeats the forces of nature and society that discourage or ruin others. Her life might be a modest triumph but for one detail: she married the wrong man. Quickly paced and precisely drawn, this novel is Aldrich's greatest tribute to the complexity, humor, endurance, and intelligence of the people who settled the prairie. Whatever its sentiments, it has as many cutting edges as a buzz saw. -- Amazon.com
-
Miss Bishop
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Ella Bishop came to college a healthy, country-bred girl, alive to every fresh sensation, with an infinite capacity for work, love, and understanding. Her abundant energy and devotion to learning made her a superior student, then a gifted teacher. But her smile concealed more than one youthful tragedy, and tragedy did not stop with youth. A 1941 movie, Cheers for Miss Bishop, was based on the novel. -- Amazon.com
-
A White Bird Flying
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Abbie Deal, the matriarch of a pioneer Nebraska family, has died at the beginning of A White Bird Flying, leaving her china and heavy furniture to others and to her granddaughter Laura the secret of her dream of finer things. Grandma Deal's literary aspirations had been thwarted by the hard circumstances of her life, but Laura vows that nothing, no one, will deter her from a successful writing career. Childhood passes, and the more she repeats her vow the more life intervenes. -- Amazon.com
-
A Lantern in Her Hand
Bess Streeter Aldrich
[A Lantern in Her Hand] is the classic story of a pioneer woman. Bess Streeter Aldrich knew what she was writing about. Her protagonist, a strong-minded pioneer woman named Abbie Deal, was modeled on her own mother, who in 1854 had traveled by covered wagon to the Midwest. 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 a sod house of her own. 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. -- Amazon.com
-
The Cutters
Bess Streeter Aldrich
They [the Cutter family] compete for the reader's attention, pursuing happiness in human ways that have not changed since 1926, when The Cutters was first published. But it is Nell Cutter who best illustrates Bess Streeter Aldrich's strength in drawing memorable characters. Whether she is decorating the house on a budget for wealthy guests or testing child-raising theories or trying to make the daily loaf a little more yeasty, Nell Cutter is not afraid to experiment. She may go out on a limb, but it is seldom a dead one. -- Amazon.com
-
The Rim of the Prairie
Bess Streeter Aldrich
"A western story set in a small town in Nebraska on 'the rim of the prairie.' The characters include a tantalizing heroine made more attractive by a hint of mystery, a steadfast hero, and two delightful pioneers." -- Cleveland Open Shelf / Amazon.com
-
Mother Mason
Bess Streeter Aldrich
Bess Streeter Aldrich is known for her portrayals of wise and witty women whose identities are strengthened, not smothered, in the bosom of the family. Molly Mason, fifty-two, is the devoted wife of the bank president, mother of four fun-loving Masons, and a reliable standby for the library board, missionary society, and the women's clubs. She has a hand in everything that happens in her midwestern town. In fact, Mother Mason never has any time to do just as she likes. Then one day she makes a headlong dash for liberty—and look out! Bess Streeter Aldrich published stories about the Masons in American magazine during World War I. Homesick American soldiers asked for more, and in 1925 the same family became the subject of Mother Mason. -- Amazon.com
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.
