His eyes weary from reading page after page of legislative bills and amendments, Sen. Rob Clements leaves his office in the Nebraska State Capitol and walks down hallowed halls to say hello to an old friend. He is not going to see a fellow legislator, a lobbyist or even the governor. Clements walks past a long row of bronze busts in the Nebraska Hall of Fame, pausing in front of the one created in the likeness of writer Bess Streeter Aldrich.

Clements doesn’t remember meeting Aldrich, the widely published author who lived across the street from his family when he was a child in Elmwood. But a photo showing the woman with the boy before his fourth birthday provides proof. A cherished Christmas card from Aldrich to Clements’ grandmother Marie in 1953, rediscovered decades later, provides another link.

“I got excited when I saw that Mrs. Aldrich mentioned everyone in the family, even me,” Clements said. “But that didn’t seem quite as special when I noticed that she mentioned the dog, too. But the genuine sentiment of the message in the card left me impressed by what a good friend and neighbor she was.”

Bess Streeter Aldrich moved to Elmwood from Iowa in 1909 after she and her husband, Charles, partnered with relatives to buy the town’s American Exchange Bank. They were warmly welcomed. Aldrich fell in love with the community and its generous residents and lovingly immortalized them in her best-selling books. Her prairie mansion-style home – the Elms – is operated today as a historical attraction, and Aldrich is synonymous with Elmwood.

Aldrich’s introduction to Elmwood hospitality came almost immediately upon her arrival. A dust storm raged as the train arrived with Aldrich and her infant daughter, Mary Eleanor; her widowed mother, Mary Wilson Anderson Streeter; and her sister and business partner, Clara Cobb. Mr. Aldrich had come ahead of his wife along with their belongings.

Riding with a hired hand from the livery as they approached a row of homes she had never seen, Aldrich knew she was home when she spied her familiar rocking chair on the front porch of the corner house. Upon walking inside – exhausted from the day’s travel – a kind neighbor woman was waiting, ready to serve the new Elmwood residents a warm meal on Aldrich’s own china.

Aldrich’s interest in writing manifested itself early. She won a writing contest at 14 and received a camera as her prize. At 17, a winning story earned her $5. Seeing her name in print solidified the girl’s desire to be a writer, but college, love and marriage would come first.

She graduated from Iowa State Normal School, now the University of Northern Iowa, in 1901. After teaching school for four years, she returned to her alma mater for another degree. In 1907 she married “Cap” Charles Aldrich, one of the youngest captains of the Spanish-American War. The young family moved to Elmwood two years later.

Aldrich immersed herself in the community by joining the PEO club, American Legion Auxiliary and a group of local needleworkers called the Darners. Writing took a backseat as she also cared for her family and home, but she soon found a way to make the time.

After seeing an announcement for a writing contest in Ladies Home Journal in 1911, Aldrich began writing during her baby’s frequent naps. She waited anxiously for the results, ultimately learning that her submission was one of six winners chosen from more than 2,000 entries.

Aldrich once commented that many of her stories were sprinkled with dishwater as she took notes or jotted down ideas while working around the house. She always took a moment to pray after sitting down at her writing desk. She wrote longhand with a No. 2 pencil in a Big Chief notepad before paying local Elmwood High School girls to type her manuscripts.

Three sons were born to the Aldriches over the next 9 years: James, Charles and Robert. The growing family outgrew four houses in Elmwood before building their own home on F Street in 1922. Shaded by 21 elm trees, Aldrich named her estate “the Elms.” She never scolded children for walking on her lawn on their way home from school. In her caring way she would often call to them with platters of warm cookies. The children called other neighborhood women by their name and the prefix Aunt – like neighbors Aunt Marie and Aunt Inez – but they always called Aldrich “Mrs. Aldrich” out of respect. Everyone did.

Mother Mason, a collection of Aldrich’s short stories, was published in 1924.  The popularity of Aldrich’s work inspired the local Elmwood Mills to give the name Mason Family Flour to one of their products.

The following year, four days after mailing his wife’s first novel The Rim of the Prairie to its prospective publisher Charles died of a brain hemorrhage. Writing became a full-time job for the widowed mother of four.

She wrote about the joys and struggles of smalltown living – subjects she knew well – and of pioneer life on the prairie. Many of her characters traced her own footsteps from Iowa, across the Missouri River to Nebraska.

During a radio interview about The Rim of the Prairie, Aldrich asked listeners to send her their family stories of pioneers and prairie life as possible fodder for her next book. She was overwhelmed with the response. She expected 20 responses but received more than 200. She read every one.

After 14 months of reading and research, Aldrich spent six months writing what would become her most famous book, A Lantern in Her Hand.

The novel’s main character, Abbie Deal, was based on Aldrich’s own mother, who traveled by covered wagon to the nation’s prairie heartland in 1854. Deal arrives in Nebraska Territory toward the end of the Civil War and settles into a sod home on a new homestead. The book describes the nearby community of Cedartown as sitting “beside a great highway which once was a buffalo trail.”

“When Mrs. Aldrich writes about Cedartown, she is writing about Elmwood,” said Kurk Shrader, executive director of the Bess Streeter Aldrich Foundation. The writer describes her adopted village in this way:

“There are weeks when drifting snow and sullen sleet hold the Cedartown community in their bitter grasp,” Aldrich writes. “There are times when hot winds come out of the southwest and parch it with their feverish breath. There are periods of monotonous drought and periods of dreary rain; but between those onslaughts there are days so perfect, so filled with clover odors and the rich, pungent smell of newly turned loam, so sumac-laden and apple-burdened, that to the prairie-born there are no others as lovely by mountain or lake or sea.”

She wrote about Elmwood residents, too. “After the book came out in 1928, residents thought they recognized themselves or family members in Aldrich’s writing, but her characters were combinations of people,” Shrader said. 

Like the author, Deal refuses to be broken by the beautiful but harsh prairie and uncontrollable circumstances of life and death. The book has been reprinted more than 80 times and inspired the CBS television movie, A Mother’s Gift.

Through her writing, Aldrich was able to raise her children and put them all through college. She penned 160 short stories printed in magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, The American and McCall’s. After Lantern, each of her novels made the best-seller list. Aldrich also worked as a writer and consultant for Paramount Pictures and was one of the highest paid female writers of her day. 

 

Dealing in South American securities and loan defaults diminished the American Exchange Bank’s reserves. It was 1933, and Pres. Roosevelt’s “bank holiday” was already resulting in the closure of some banks. As one of three stockholders, Aldrich feared that the bank might fail, that her business partners would suffer and that Elmwood residents could lose homes and farms. She went to Lincoln to see George W. Woods, the state’s banking department chief. Woods later related the meeting to the Omaha World-Herald.

“At present I am trying to write a book, but cannot go on with it … You do not know the amount of income and savings I have had; I suspect they are larger than you suppose,” Aldrich said. “But if it takes all, to the last cent I have, I shall not permit that bank to close.”

Her securities and jewelry, and $10,000 from two other depositors, covered the $45,000 needed to restore the bank’s capital and keep it open. Woods and the newspaper honored Aldrich’s request to not divulge her contribution during her lifetime. 

With her children fledged and on their own, Aldrich sold the bank and her home to the Clements family. The house was built for $7,000. Not wanting to take advantage of her friends, that is the price she sold it for. She moved to Lincoln and built a house next door to her daughter’s home. The street passing by it was renamed Aldrich Road after her 1954 death. Aldrich is buried next to her husband and three of their children in Elmwood Cemetery. She was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1973.

Rob Clements remembers reading Aldrich’s books to his daughters, how the girls would fall asleep and he would keep reading. “I thought here I am, this thick-skinned banker, but Mrs. Aldrich always being able to pull a tear out of my eye,” Clements said. His family members lived in the home until 1992 when they donated it to the foundation. The Elms is preserved today as the Bess Streeter Aldrich Home.

Gardens on the property are named for Aldrich’s books and adorned with plants mentioned in her writing. Dutch elm disease took all but one of her favorite trees. Local Nebraska Master Gardeners tend to new plantings.

Fifty-six windows flood the 13-room home with light. The writer’s wicker furniture remains in the sun room with a clear view of children playing across the street in Bess Streeter Aldrich Park. A Big Chief notebook rests on her desk. A woman dressed as Aldrich leads visitors though the home.

Family holiday celebrations in Aldrich’s dining room are what Clements misses most. So much so that on three occasions he’s secured permission from the foundation to have Thanksgiving in the home with his children and grandchildren.

“I’ve got more grandchildren since then, so it is about time for my family to gather here again,” Clements said.

“I hesitate to use the word ‘museum’ even though that is what the Aldrich House is. But it is still a house and home. Still her home, the home of a good neighbor and friend to my family and to Elmwood.”  

 

Bess’ Books

Mother Mason (1924) Molly Mason is the devoted wife of the bank president, mother of four children and a reliable standby for the library board, missionary society and the women’s clubs.  She has a hand in everything.  In fact, Mother Mason never has any time for herself. Then one day, she makes a headlong dash for liberty!

The Rim of the Prairie (1925) This is the story of Nancy Moore and how she returned for a “last visit” to the farm of Uncle Jud and Aunt Biny, where she was raised. Vivacious and full of life, there is a shadow over Nancy, despite her engagement to a wealthy New Yorker. She faces the problems of deciding whether to marry the man to whom she is engaged or the man she loves.

The Cutters (1926) All unhappy families are alike, but each happy family is happy in its own way. Although the Cutters live in a rambling white house in a midwestern town called Meadows, they are too irreducibly real to stand in for the average All-American family created by popular magazines and television sitcoms. 

A Lantern in Her Hand (1928) In this classic story of a pioneer woman, Aldrich modeled protagonist Abbie Deal on her own mother. Abbie accompanies her family to Nebraska Territory where she marries and settles into her own sod house. Refusing to be broken by hard experiences, Abbie sets a joyful example for her family – and her readers.

A White Bird Flying (1931) Abbie Deal, the matriarch of a pioneer Nebraska family, has died, leaving her heavy furniture to others and to her granddaughter, Laura a dream unfulfilled. Grandma Deal’s literary aspiration has been thwarted by the hard circumstances of life, but Laura vows that nothing will deter her from a successful writing career.

Miss Bishop (1933) Ella Bishop came to college with an infinite capacity for work, love and understanding. But her smile concealed more than one youthful tragedy, and tragedy did not stop with youth. The 1941 movie, Cheers for Miss Bishop, was based on this novel.

Spring Came on Forever (1935) This novel is about two Nebraska pioneer families from settlement to the 1930s.  The heroine is German settler Amalia Holmsdorfer. From her late teens to her mid-eighties, she defeats the forces of nature and society that discourage or ruin others. Her life might be a modest triumph but for one detail: she marries the wrong man.

Song of Years (1939) 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 J eremiah Martin, whose seven daughters would have chased the gloom from any bachelor’s heart. However, the feasts, weddings, and holiday celebrations in Song of Years are shadowed by all the rigors and perils of frontier living.

The Lieutenant’s Lady (1942) When Linnie Colsworth came from the East to Omaha, she plunged into a world more hazardous  than she had ever known. Land seekers were pouring into the West and displacing the Indians. Not one to take shelter and spend her days serving tea, Linnie travels up the Missouri and marries a handsome lieutenant. Their harrowing story is based on the diary of the actual Army wife who recoded the daily weather – internal and external.

Provided by the Bess Streeter Aldrich Foundation.

The Bess Streeter Aldrich House is at 204 East F St. in Elmwood (402) 994-3855.

It is only beautiful in the eyes who live here and in the memories of those who live here and in the memories of the Nebraska-born whose dwelling in far places has given them moments of homesickness for the low rolling hills, the swell and dip of the ripening wheat, the fields of sinuously waving corn and the elusively fragrant odor of alfalfa. – from A Lantern in Her Hand