An Introduction to Bess Streeter Aldrich, one of our Cedar Falls Authors Festival authors

1. BESS STREETER
ALDRICH
An Introduction by Cherie Dargan,
Webmaster, www.cfauthorsfestival.org

2. Bess Streeter Aldrich
• February 17, 1881 -–
August 3, 1954
• Bess Streeter Aldrich
tells the stories of the
pioneers who came to
Iowa.
• We “share her” with
Nebraska, since she
moved there in 1909.

3. • She is known as a
prolific author of 200
short stories and 13
novels.
• Her book Miss
Bishop was made into a
movie, Cheers for Miss
Bishop (1941).
Aldrich: book to movie, Miss
Bishop

4. From the Biographical Dictionary of
Iowa
• “When her mother's family arrived in Cedar Falls, they
lived first in a sheep shed with quilts covering the door
opening while they built their house.
• Bess's mother, Mary Wilson Anderson, had little formal
education, but at 18 she taught in one of the first log
schools in the area, "boarding around" and receiving $20
for three months of teaching.”
• Her parents married in 1855: both sides were pioneers.

5. Her Birthplace & children
• 809 Franklin Street (left)
• Bess with children (below)

6. Aldrich and Cedar Falls
• “Bess Streeter Aldrich based her Song of Years (1938) on
the history of her pioneer grandfather, Zimri Streeter, who
settled in Cedar Falls.
• The main character in Miss Bishop (1933) is thought to
be based on a professor from the University.
• In the beginning of A Lantern in Her Hand (1928), Bess
Streeter Aldrich uses Cedar Falls as the setting.” (Literary
History Website, UNI class project, 2012)

7. Aldrich & UNI

8. Aldrich quotes
• "The Nebraska heat rolled in upon one like the engulfing
waves of a dry sea...."
A White Bird Flying - 1931
• "Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself
about you like a shawl. But it warmed you more than your
body. It warmed your heart ... filled it too, with melody that
would last forever."
Song of Years - 1938
• Aldrich Museum website.

9. Lantern Novel online
• http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500521h.html
• A LANTERN IN HER HAND By Bess Streeter Aldrich
• Abbie Mackenzie was old Abbie Deal's maiden name. And
because the first eight years of her life were interesting
only to her family, we shall skip over them as lightly as
Abbie herself used to skip a hoop on the high, crack-filled
sidewalks in the little village of Chicago, which stood at
the side of a lake where the bulrushes grew.
• We find her then, at eight, in the year 1854, camping at
night on the edge of some timberland just off the beaten
trail between Dubuque and the new home in Blackhawk
County, Iowa, to which the little family was bound. (from
Chapter 1)

10. Works of Bess Streeter Aldrich
• Mother Mason (1924)
• The Rim of the Prairie (1925)
• The Cutters (1926)
• A Lantern in Her Hand (1928)
• A White Bird Flying (1931)
• Miss Bishop (1933)
• Spring Came on Forever (1935)
• The Man Who Caught the Weather (1936)
• Song of Years (1939)

11. Works of Bess S. Aldrich, cont.
• The Drum Goes Dead (1941)
• The Lieutenant's Lady (1942)
• Journey into Christmas (1949)
• The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader (1950)
• A Bess Streeter Aldrich Treasury (1959) (posthumous)
• The Collected Short Works, 1907–1919
• The Collected Short Works, 1920–1954