A Very Betsy-Tacy Day
Sep. 10th, 2023 08:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerYesterday was once again devoted to Betsy-Tacy things. First, a trip to the modern library, on the theory that I must have missed the display case of Maud's things that the Betsy-Tacy Society website assures me is there. (In particular, I wanted to see the little glass pitcher that Tacy/Bick gave Betsy/Maud on her fifth birthday party, when they became friends.) However the website must be out of date, because there is no such display case! Alas...
However, the historical society does has a corner devoted to Maud Hart Lovelace, with the statue of Betsy on her wedding day from the promotion of Betsy's Wedding, and photographs of Maud and her family and all the Crowd, and her high school scrapbook - in terribly rough shape now! - scrapbooks are a conservation nightmare, after all.
And then Betsy's Carnegie Library, the Carnegie Art Center now, so the books and the bookshelves are gone - but the fireplace is still there, the fireplace in the children's room where Betsy sat to read about ancient Greece. The kindly curator obligingly set up a chair, and I sat (I had read right up to the library scene that morning, so I would be prepared) and read about Betsy's library trip, and when she looks up from her book and smiles at the fireplace and then around the room, I looked up and smiled too.
"Was that wonderful for you?" the curator asked, as I was leaving.
"Oh, yes!" I told her.
Then up the hill for my tour of Betsy & Tacy's houses! They are right across the street from each other, and I am delighted to inform you that each house has a front-facing window on the second floor, and just as you might hope those are the windows to Maud and Bick's bedrooms!
Actually the tour only takes in Betsy's house, which is mostly done in books and furniture from the period but not actually from Maud's family. Tacy's house is half a display of artifacts from Maud and her Crowd, and early editions of all of Maud's books, and half a gift shop, in which I lingered for ages deciding what to buy... and then after I left, I came puffing back, having decided that this is a case of penny wise and pound foolish, so I might as well buy a few more books, and also ask whether they might have tucked away a couple booklets which are listed on the website, but not as far as I could tell in the store?
And indeed they did! One was "Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Ocean," which is a short story based on Maud & Bicky's 1968 trip to Europe, after they had both been widowed. They find themselves in Madrid, and decide that they must try to visit the King of Spain, since they fell in love with a photograph of him when they were children! ("But didn't Spain have a different king by then?" you ask. "Did Spain have a king in 1968?" Shhhhhhh.)
The other is "Betty and Bick Meet a Hermit," which Maud wrote in high school, and it's fascinating as a proto-Betsy-Tacy story! Betty is Maud (and it's interesting that she'd already settled on a name so close to Betsy for her fictional alter ego), and Bick is simply Bick, her best friend, named unchanged. They go over the Big Hill and meet the hermit, who happens to be a magazine editor, who asks to see some of Betty's stories! (This house also mentions a "telegraph" between Betty and Bick's bedrooms, a string with a basket hanging between their windows. Did Maud and Bick set up such a system, or was this a flight of imagination?)
This adventure at last pushed me to go over the Big Hill myself. The road from Maud's time no longer exists, so I found another route up, and it was QUITE STEEP! If Maud's road was anything like that, she and Bick must have had very strong legs. But I made it to the top, and looked down over the valley - from here you couldn't see the town, just the trees - did it look like that in Maud's day? One suspects that it might have been recently logged at that point. But a lovely view, nonetheless.
And then back to the bench, to read Betsy-Tacy and Tib (out of order, but I'd only just got the copy that afternoon in the gift shop). And a return to the bench after supper, to watch the sun go down, and imagine the girls playing in the street until dusk closed in, and their mothers opened the doors to their two houses, just across the street from each other, and called them in. "Maud! Bick!"
However, the historical society does has a corner devoted to Maud Hart Lovelace, with the statue of Betsy on her wedding day from the promotion of Betsy's Wedding, and photographs of Maud and her family and all the Crowd, and her high school scrapbook - in terribly rough shape now! - scrapbooks are a conservation nightmare, after all.
And then Betsy's Carnegie Library, the Carnegie Art Center now, so the books and the bookshelves are gone - but the fireplace is still there, the fireplace in the children's room where Betsy sat to read about ancient Greece. The kindly curator obligingly set up a chair, and I sat (I had read right up to the library scene that morning, so I would be prepared) and read about Betsy's library trip, and when she looks up from her book and smiles at the fireplace and then around the room, I looked up and smiled too.
"Was that wonderful for you?" the curator asked, as I was leaving.
"Oh, yes!" I told her.
Then up the hill for my tour of Betsy & Tacy's houses! They are right across the street from each other, and I am delighted to inform you that each house has a front-facing window on the second floor, and just as you might hope those are the windows to Maud and Bick's bedrooms!
Actually the tour only takes in Betsy's house, which is mostly done in books and furniture from the period but not actually from Maud's family. Tacy's house is half a display of artifacts from Maud and her Crowd, and early editions of all of Maud's books, and half a gift shop, in which I lingered for ages deciding what to buy... and then after I left, I came puffing back, having decided that this is a case of penny wise and pound foolish, so I might as well buy a few more books, and also ask whether they might have tucked away a couple booklets which are listed on the website, but not as far as I could tell in the store?
And indeed they did! One was "Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Ocean," which is a short story based on Maud & Bicky's 1968 trip to Europe, after they had both been widowed. They find themselves in Madrid, and decide that they must try to visit the King of Spain, since they fell in love with a photograph of him when they were children! ("But didn't Spain have a different king by then?" you ask. "Did Spain have a king in 1968?" Shhhhhhh.)
The other is "Betty and Bick Meet a Hermit," which Maud wrote in high school, and it's fascinating as a proto-Betsy-Tacy story! Betty is Maud (and it's interesting that she'd already settled on a name so close to Betsy for her fictional alter ego), and Bick is simply Bick, her best friend, named unchanged. They go over the Big Hill and meet the hermit, who happens to be a magazine editor, who asks to see some of Betty's stories! (This house also mentions a "telegraph" between Betty and Bick's bedrooms, a string with a basket hanging between their windows. Did Maud and Bick set up such a system, or was this a flight of imagination?)
This adventure at last pushed me to go over the Big Hill myself. The road from Maud's time no longer exists, so I found another route up, and it was QUITE STEEP! If Maud's road was anything like that, she and Bick must have had very strong legs. But I made it to the top, and looked down over the valley - from here you couldn't see the town, just the trees - did it look like that in Maud's day? One suspects that it might have been recently logged at that point. But a lovely view, nonetheless.
And then back to the bench, to read Betsy-Tacy and Tib (out of order, but I'd only just got the copy that afternoon in the gift shop). And a return to the bench after supper, to watch the sun go down, and imagine the girls playing in the street until dusk closed in, and their mothers opened the doors to their two houses, just across the street from each other, and called them in. "Maud! Bick!"
no subject
Date: 2023-09-10 01:58 pm (UTC)"Oh, yes!" I told her.
Awwww :)
Those short stories sound so charming! "Betty and Bick" is SUCH a high schooler's story, omg— self-insert wish-fulfillment!!
no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-10 03:01 pm (UTC)"Oh, yes!" I told her.
It must make her so happy to be able to make someone happy in this very particular way!
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Date: 2023-09-11 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 02:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-10 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-10 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 05:50 am (UTC)The detail about Betty and Betsy reminded me of my grandmother, an Elizabeth who went by Betty most of her life, except for a few years when she was experimenting with being Betsy instead. But they were a crucial few years: Betsy is the name engraved inside her wedding ring, and the name some lifelong friends called her by because they'd gotten to know her during that time. (One of them was her second husband, whom she married in old age after his wife and my grandfather had both died, and so he and his family always called her Betsy even though almost no one else did.)
no subject
Date: 2023-09-11 02:07 pm (UTC)I love the Betty/Betsy story about your grandmother. Fossil names! Some of my college friends still call me Jen, because I was experimenting with being a Jen at the time, but I could never fully commit to it and dropped it after college.
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Date: 2023-09-11 11:50 am (UTC)So the big hill is not a misnomer... Hill big...
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Date: 2023-09-11 02:03 pm (UTC)I had wondered if the Big Hill was only Big to the eyes of small children, but no! Truly a Big Hill.
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Date: 2023-09-18 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-18 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-19 10:15 am (UTC)And going up the Big Hill! And more stories! :D Delightful!
no subject
Date: 2023-09-19 06:31 pm (UTC)