Bess Streeter Aldrich’s “A Lantern In Her Hand”

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE
DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB #46
BESS STREETER ALDRICH’S A LANTERN IN HER HAND
November 4, 2015

I take our book selection seriously, believing as I do that life offers us all too few opportunities to read books worth remembering. After all, if we read a book a week, starting at the age of five, at the age of 75, we’d only have read 3,600 books out of the millions one could choose from.

Thus I gave a lot of thought to our 46th book selection. During a recent fall colors trip we took with Bob and Lucy Earp in Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, I took four potential candidates for the November book along. Aldrich’s book won out. It was my second reading of Aldrich’s masterpiece, and it impressed me even more the second time than it did the first (rarely is this true).

Would you like to become an authority of sorts on life on the Great Plains during the pivotal post Civil War years? Travel in a wagon train, live in a sod house (mostly underground), live with droughts, torrential rains, prairie fires, blizzards, grasshopper plagues, claim jumpers, primitive medical conditions, unrelenting winds, marauding Indians, financial depressions, isolation, wars, epidemics, early death, and ever so much more. Live through it as retold by one whose parents lived through it herself. The early events in the book were lived by Aldrich’s parents; the later events she experienced herself.

As a reader, you are there with the storyteller, Bess Streeter Aldrich. Once you board that covered wagon that is pulled west into Nebraska, vicariously you live as pioneers lived, enter into their minds, hearts, and souls.

“All along, you will be amazed at the sheer number of insights into life back then that are relevant to life today. So what if overnight our power grid was hacked and we were forced to start all over again as pioneers? Just as Abbie and Will did. What if we had to put our own dreams on hold so that our children might live a better life than we had? What if we had nothing to pass on to our children but our dreams and a precious few bygone evidences that we weren’t always poor? The following excerpt movingly portrays this:

        “Abbie walked over to the small-paned half-window set in the sod, and looked out at the gray twilight coming across the prairie. The winds that were never still blew past the house in their unending flight.

“How queer people were. All the folks in the new country were hoarding things, hanging on to old heirlooms. They became symbols of refinement and culture. “Sarah Lutz had a painting that drew your eyes to it the minute you opened the door. Oscar Lutz’s wife had a pink quilted bedspread that she kept rolled up in newspapers. Even Christine Reinmueller had a bright blue vase with magenta-colored roses on it, standing up on top of the cupboard. They stood for something besides the land and the corn and the cattle. They must hang onto them, never lose them out of their lives, for if lost, everything was lost. She must hang onto the pearls and everything they stood for; Sarah must keep her painting; Martha Lutz, her bedspread; Christine, her blue vase. Else what was there in the future for the children?” (P. 108).

But the true measure of a book is whether or not it has the power to change you, inspire you, elevate you, broaden you, make you think deep thoughts—so that when you reluctantly read that last page, you are a different person from what you were when you read that first page—This is just such a book.

Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881 – 1954) was one of Nebraska’s most widely read and loved authors. Her writing career spanned forty-some years, during which she published over 160 short stories and articles, nine novels, one novella, two books of short stories, and one omnibus. In her work, she emphasized family values and recorded accurately Midwest pioneering history. She became one of the highest-paid authors of her time.

Her work appeared regularly in such magazines as The American, Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, Collier’s, Cosmopolitan, and McCall’s.

Following is a listing of her best-known works:

1924 – Mother Mason
1925 – The Rim of the Prairie
1926 – The Cutters
1928 – A Lantern in Her Hand
1931 – A White Bird Flying
1933 – Miss Bishop
1935 – Spring Came on Forever
1936 – The Man Who Caught the Weather
1939 – Song of Years
1941 – The Drum Goes Dead
1942 – The Lieutenant’s Lady
1949 – Journey into Christmas
1950 – The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader

And so Abbie Deal went happily about her work, one baby in her arms and the other at her skirts, courage her lode-star and love her guide,—a song upon her lips and a lantern in her hand. (P. 70)

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Aldrich was originally published by D. Appleton & Company. If at all possible, secure a first edition hardback with dust jacket. She has also been published by Dutton Signet and Appleton Century Crofts.

Living to Be 100 Years Old!

BLOG #14, SERIES 6
WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE
LIVING TO BE 100 YEARS OLD
April 8, 2015

The cover story in the April 5, 2015 Parade was titled “Living to 100.” The author, Ginny Graves, notes that there are 53,364 centenarians in the U.S. today; however, experts predict that number will skyrocket to 600,000 by 2050.

There has been much publicity recently about the so-called Blue Zones (areas with the highest concentration of centenarians). Most prominent are Sardinia; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and, in the U.S., Loma Linda, California.

Graves notes that journalist Dan Buettner has become a longevity guru, thanks to books such as his new one, The Blue Zone Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People (National Geographic Books).

Here are some of Buettner’s conclusions about Blue Zones:

●   They tend to hang out with individuals who share their healthy living philosophies. A Brigham Young University study confirms this: those with strong connections were twice as likely to outlive those who do not.
●   They exercise regularly, often choose to walk with friends three, four miles a day at least four times a week. Their lifestyles encourage physical activities rather than sedentary ones.
●   The world’s most robust centenarians stick with diets that are 95% plant-based; eating some fish but little meat. In a major study, British researchers found that those who ate seven or more portions of vegetables and fruits every day, lowered their risk of dying from cancer by 25%, and from cardiovascular disease by 31%. Many drink a glass of wine each day. They eat smaller portions.
●   They generally belong to a faith-based community. Buettner notes that attending services four times a month can extend life span by 14 years.
●   Marital commitment alone can add up to three years to one’s life.
●   Extended family interaction significantly extends life.
●   Crucial to longevity is having a purpose, reasons for facing and living each day.

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My own research confirms all this:

1.   Studies confirm that there is an extremely strong relationship between mind and body. If the mind tells the body, I’m retired now; so I can just loaf and veg out each day, the brain sends out a mandate to the body’s defense armies (the white blood cells): Dismantle the defense system for there are no longer any dreams or goals to protect. And you die. Often in a short time-period. Only those retirees who establish new goals, create new passions, find new hobbies, and dream new dreams, are likely to live long.

2.   There are no plateaus where health is concerned. One is either getting stronger (the body essentially rebuilds itself every 100 days) each 100 days, or one is getting weaker. Consistent daily exercise is absolutely essential.

3.   Vibrant Blue Zoners work hard each day to remain relevant intellectually. By continued study and voracious reading, they stay current with the Zeitgeist; thus their writing and speaking can have a profound effect on society. This is why aging luminaries such as Warren Buffett remain so iconic, and their wisdom is sought after.

4.   Blue Zoners never feel old. For them “old” remains a long way off. When my great aunt, Lois Wheeler Berry was 105 years old, she continued to maintain that “Old is fifteen years older than you are.” She was right: age is a state of mind; some are old at 10 and others remain young at 110!

So each of us has the potential (short of unforeseen calamaties or diseases) to live long vibrant lives, on past 100 years. But no one can slide or veg into it. It demands daily VIBRANT LIVING and perpetual joie du vivre.