A Bouquet of Mary Stolz Books

[osprey_archer]

Since I’ll be leaving Indianapolis soon, I figured I’d better take advantage of the Indianapolis Library while I had the chance, specifically by borrowing the books of many mid-to-late twentieth century authors whose books fall in the awkward zone of “still in copyright but often not still in libraries.”

Naturally, Mary Stolz was high on my list. I started off with Emmett’s Pig, an easy reader about a young boy who lives in New York City, but yearns to have a pet pig. Eventually, his parents buy him a pig that lives on a farm, which Emmett names King Emmett, and he corresponds with the farmer about his pet. Charming illustrations by Garth Williams.

In the author bio of Emmett’s Pig, I discovered that my recent read Coco Grimes is actually the last of a quartet of books, the earlier books being Storm in the Night, Go Fish, and Stealing Home. (This was not in any way indicated on Coco Grimes itself. I’ve found that it’s often surprisingly hard to piece together whether older books have a sequel, or are a sequel, or part of a series, or what have you.)

Storm in the Night is a picture book, with beautiful blue-tinted nighttime illustrations by Pat Cummings (for which the book won a Coretta Scott King award). One evening, after a storm knocks out the electricity, Thomas’s grandfather tells him a story about a storm in his own childhood.

Go Fish is an easy reader - like Betsy-Tacy, the reading level in this series grows with the characters - in which Thomas and Grandpa catch some fish for dinner off the pier near their Florida home. (This starts with a delightful chapter where Grandpa is trying to read and Thomas, while not directly interrupting him, keeps talking to himself loudly in the hope that Grandpa will be distracted.) A peaceful, pleasant book.

By Stealing Home, Thomas is ten, and the book is therefore a regular children’s chapter book. Thomas and Grandpa’s happy life of fishing, storytelling, and listening to baseball on the radio when Aunt Linzy, Grandpa’s sister-in-law, moves in. Which means taking over Thomas’s room, so Thomas has to sleep on a cot in Grandpa’s room. She doesn’t approve of fishing, doesn’t care for baseball, and paints the house barn-red, which Thomas likes but Grandpa doesn’t.

Nowadays if someone wrote to an advice columnist and asked, “My sister-in-law, whom I’ve never gotten along with, wants to move in. Do I have to let her?” the response would be a resounding NO. Linzy’s not even a blood relation, for goodness sake! But even if she was his sister, the advice columnist would probably say NO.

But in Stealing Home, published in 1992, Grandpa takes it as a matter of course that he should and must take Linzy in, even though she hasn’t indicated how long she intends to visit or even why she’s coming to stay with them. (Will she be out on the street otherwise?) It’s a striking example of a social change that has happened almost under the radar: the sense of family obligation that extends past one’s own children has just quietly slipped away. Convenient if you expect that you’ll always be the one with the house and the money, of course. Less so if you might, one day, be the one who needs help.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Yeah, the current era brooks way less imposition of obligation on people--and that is exactly the two-edged sword you describe. Great if you're all set and don't want to be inconvenienced (or worse: we have to grant that it can be worse than mere inconvenience); not so great if you are alone and desperate in the wide world.

I remember seeing the Emmett's Pig book around when I was a kid.

[sovay]

Yeah, the current era brooks way less imposition of obligation on people

When I was in seventh grade, my youngest uncle lived with us for about six months, right after he had been demobbed. This is where the story about me jumping twenty feet out of a tree comes from; my uncle had just done the same and walked away after landing gracefully on his feet, but he had been trained as a paratrooper and I had not and I fell over in the grass convinced that all of the bones in my feet had just been smashed up into my ankles and my mother yelled at him. (She and my father had effectively raised him when he was younger, but under these circumstances I think she would have yelled at him anyway.)

[asakiyume]

I'm glad your family supported your uncle! It sounds as if he was something of a son to your parents. Would have been good if he didn't let you jump out of a tree though! (Actually I'm hazy on the details of this story?)

--I should say that of course even if the era pushes that obligation on people less in popular culture, there are still many substrates of society, plus individual families, that still feel the obligation (and no doubt there were families in the past who bucked expectations).

[sholio]

Yeah, I was working on a comment to say - I don't think it's a universal shift by any means, I think it's mostly a shift among younger urban people (Gen X, Millennial and younger), but it's still very much a thing among e.g. rural working-class families or immigrant communities.

As you said above, it's a two-edged sword; I mean, the reason why it is a thing now is because of people Boomer-age and younger pushing back against the idea that your identity is supposed to be submerged in your family identity, people wanting to self-actualize and so forth, with the side factor that a lot of people who didn't meet their family's expectations - queer, or politically disengaged from their family's politics, or whatever - found out that their families weren't going to be there for them in the same way, and that's worked its way into the general social fabric as well.

Still, it was weird for me to see the dates osprey_archer is talking about and realize this was 1992 we were talking about and not like, 1952. It's definitely a big shift in a short time, even though it's not a universal shift everywhere.

[asakiyume]

Nodding strongly at your second paragraph. There's really no rule of social behavior that's going to take into account all situations. Like, even the most loyal family can be forgiven for not wanting to shelter someone who's dangerously violent, let's say. And, as you note, families have never been universally there for everyone, or only with such poison pills as to make things impossible. Ideas become popular in media: for a while, it's popular in literature to dunk on small towns: havens of narrow-mindedness, conformity, prejudice--the big cities are for stimulating interactions, broadmindedness, equality. And then you get the dunking on cities: places of alienation and anomy, falseness and loneliness--and small towns are places of rootedness, mutual support, etc. All these things can be true (and none of them need to be)--it just becomes popular to highlight one type of vision or another.

[sovay]

Would have been good if he didn't let you jump out of a tree though! (Actually I'm hazy on the details of this story?)

We had been hanging out in the tree together! He jumped out and walked away fine! I jumped out after him like that joke about all your friends and the Brooklyn Bridge! My mother yelled at him because he'd had kids of his own and should have known better!

--I should say that of course even if the era pushes that obligation on people less in popular culture, there are still many substrates of society, plus individual families, that still feel the obligation (and no doubt there were families in the past who bucked expectations).

I grew up with a mix: some family so unsafe there was no obligation to interact with them, some other family, a lot of support and binding.

[asakiyume]

If you grew up with family of that mix, then you no doubt had modeled for you healthy boundary drawing and also the virtue of support even if it should require some sacrifices (by which I mean: I can guess/tell that you did).

[osprey_archer]

Yes, and the fact that it can be so much worse than inconvenience is the reason why it's hard to decry the trend entirely. Do we really want people to be trapped in, say, a horrible abusive marriage, simply because they swore "for better and worse" years ago? Of course not! Do we even want people to stay in marriages they just don't want to be in any more? No, not really. But if the reason they don't want to be in the marriage anymore is that their spouse has developed health problems that are a big downer...? Well...it seems harsh to cast Cancer Spouse adrift upon the world... especially given that it's a society where no one else (unless Cancer Spouse's parents are still alive) will feel any obligation to help either.

My unscientific impression is that Emmett's Pig was one of Mary Stolz's most popular/common books. (This is based partly on the fact that she published a sequel decades after the original.) I am pleased to have this impression confirmed by your childhood memories!

[anna_wing]

the sense of family obligation that extends past one’s own children has just quietly slipped away.

Yes. Reading online forums from Western countries, or even those with the younger generation from my own region is...an interesting experience.

[osprey_archer]

I do wonder sometimes if the people typing these things ever subject them to the test of "If I was the one in trouble, how would I like to be treated by my friends and relations?" But possibly they have convinced themselves that this is exactly how they would like to be treated - happily live on the street rather than impose on anyone, etc. etc.