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Book Review: Betsy’s Wedding
Aug. 24th, 2023 09:16 amDespite the title, Betsy’s Wedding mostly takes place after Betsy’s wedding. Barely a week after Betsy returns from Europe in the fall of 1914, she and Joe get married in Betsy’s parents’ parlor, after Joe impetuously quit his job at the paper in Boston to take up work in Minneapolis, so home-loving Betsy will be close to her family.
One of Lovelace’s great strengths is the description of physical spaces, making them seem vibrant and real and home-like. Here, we have Betsy and Joe’s first apartment, a little newlywed place with a bow window where Betsy likes to sit and write after wrestling with the housework.
Budget-conscious Betsy wants to do all the housework herself, but Joe insists that Betsy should hire a girl once a week to do the heavy work: two dollars a week might seem excessive on his salary, he admits, but Betsy is a writer and she has to have time to write, and he’s confident her works will in time cover the expense. In general, Betsy and Joe are deeply supportive of each other’s work, and indeed this is held up as a central pillar of a successful romance. Later in the book, when Tib is seeing an unsuitable man, one of the main clues that he’s all wrong for her is the fact that he’s dismissive of her talents.
But events contrive to pry them from this honeymoon bower: Joe’s recently widowed Aunt Ruth needs a place to stay as she contemplates her next move, and of course they need a larger place if they’re going to take her in. But Betsy is initially appalled. Their lovely little apartment! Their delicious privacy! Do they have to give it up to house some woman she barely knows?
This is one of those moments that really encapsulates a change in social expectations. Any advice columnist nowadays would be on Betsy’s side, but Betsy knows that she’s being selfish: her preferences cannot take precedence over Aunt Ruth’s needs. She struggles mightily with herself, and moves past sulky acquiescence to truly welcoming Aunt Ruth.
So Betsy and Joe buy a little house, Aunt Ruth moves in, and although the move was meant to help Aunt Ruth, it ends up helping Betsy and Joe just as much. Joe gets moved to night shifts, and Betsy would have spent many lonely evenings without Aunt Ruth to keep her company. Plus, Aunt Ruth takes over a lot of the housework, leaving Betsy with more time to write.
Through it all, Betsy and Tacy, both blissfully married, are plotting to find a husband for their single friend Tib. Their matchmaking attempts backfire, but at last Tib finds the perfect man on her own!
The book ends in 1917, with all the boys joining up for World War I. But although the war is important, the denouement centers on Tib’s wedding, back in dear old Deep Valley. In Tib’s beloved chocolate-colored house, Betsy and Tacy stand up as Tib’s bridesmaids.
She was in the land of dreams now, Betsy thought. The future and the past seemed to melt together.
One of Lovelace’s great strengths is the description of physical spaces, making them seem vibrant and real and home-like. Here, we have Betsy and Joe’s first apartment, a little newlywed place with a bow window where Betsy likes to sit and write after wrestling with the housework.
Budget-conscious Betsy wants to do all the housework herself, but Joe insists that Betsy should hire a girl once a week to do the heavy work: two dollars a week might seem excessive on his salary, he admits, but Betsy is a writer and she has to have time to write, and he’s confident her works will in time cover the expense. In general, Betsy and Joe are deeply supportive of each other’s work, and indeed this is held up as a central pillar of a successful romance. Later in the book, when Tib is seeing an unsuitable man, one of the main clues that he’s all wrong for her is the fact that he’s dismissive of her talents.
But events contrive to pry them from this honeymoon bower: Joe’s recently widowed Aunt Ruth needs a place to stay as she contemplates her next move, and of course they need a larger place if they’re going to take her in. But Betsy is initially appalled. Their lovely little apartment! Their delicious privacy! Do they have to give it up to house some woman she barely knows?
This is one of those moments that really encapsulates a change in social expectations. Any advice columnist nowadays would be on Betsy’s side, but Betsy knows that she’s being selfish: her preferences cannot take precedence over Aunt Ruth’s needs. She struggles mightily with herself, and moves past sulky acquiescence to truly welcoming Aunt Ruth.
So Betsy and Joe buy a little house, Aunt Ruth moves in, and although the move was meant to help Aunt Ruth, it ends up helping Betsy and Joe just as much. Joe gets moved to night shifts, and Betsy would have spent many lonely evenings without Aunt Ruth to keep her company. Plus, Aunt Ruth takes over a lot of the housework, leaving Betsy with more time to write.
Through it all, Betsy and Tacy, both blissfully married, are plotting to find a husband for their single friend Tib. Their matchmaking attempts backfire, but at last Tib finds the perfect man on her own!
The book ends in 1917, with all the boys joining up for World War I. But although the war is important, the denouement centers on Tib’s wedding, back in dear old Deep Valley. In Tib’s beloved chocolate-colored house, Betsy and Tacy stand up as Tib’s bridesmaids.
She was in the land of dreams now, Betsy thought. The future and the past seemed to melt together.
