Elnora Comstock

Heather Fairfield as Elnora, 1990

A Girl of the Limberlost tells the story of Elnora, a “country girl” living at the edge of the Limberlost Swamp and gathering moths and other creatures for study, as its author, Gene Stratton-Porter, did. In 1909, when the book was published, the Limberlost was a dwindling 13,000-acre swamp in northeast Indiana, being drained for farmland, for its exotic timber and drilled for oil.

Elnora’s father drowned in the swamp at her birth. Her mother mourns extravagantly, blaming Elnora and treating her roughly. At 16, Elnora goes to high school, but must endure the ridicule of the other girls for her uncouth looks. Elnora’s neighbors, the Sintons, go to town and buy material for nice dresses and good shoes for her, but neither she, nor her mother are willing to take them until Elnora finds she can pay for things by selling her collected moths to the Bird Woman, who is writing natural history books.

Elnora eventually makes friends of the girls in school, sharing treats with them. She has never known anything of her father. When she falls in love with the music of a violin, her mother hushes her. Elnora’s father had played and Mrs. Comstock cannot endure it. The Sintons find Elnora’s father’s violin for her, however, and Elnora secretly learns to play.

At a school play, Elnora plays the violin, bringing in all of the music she has learned from the natural sounds of the swamp. Elnora’s mother, who had never been to the high school before, faints when she hears this. Elnora is to lead the graduation procession, as she is valedictorian. She asks her mother for a new dress to wear, but her mother only produces one from last year. Hopes dashed, Elnora puts on a gingham dress and rushes to the Bird Woman to ask for help.

When Mrs. Comstock arrives at graduation, Elnora leads the procession in a beautiful white dress the Bird Woman has concocted from an old trunk. When Mrs. Comstock slaps Elnora, destroying an important yellow emperor moth, Mrs. Sinton has had enough. She tells Elnora’s mother that her husband wasn’t worth her tears. He had been planning an affair when he died. Mrs. Comstock changes completely, fearing she has lost her daughter. She finds two yellow emperor moths for her, and Elnora is induced to come home.

Elnora would like to go to college, but she has also been offered a position teaching nature classes in the school. During the summer  she works hard to complete her collections. Philip Ammon, a young banker who is recovering from a serious illness, arrives in town at his doctor’s recommendation. Upon meeting Elnora, he begins to help with collection.

Philip stays all summer, helping Elnora and eating the good food produced by her mother. When Elnora plays the violin for him, her mother hears it, takes it back to the house and in the evenings, Elnora plays for them. Philip, who is engaged to a childhood sweetheart from Chicago, finds Elnora quite different from the society women he knows. He senses her sympathy and comprehension. “She had known bitter experiences early in life,” but “she seemed to possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and animate creatures.” He also finds her lovely, with her vibrant hair and striking eyes.

Philip, Elnora and Mrs. Comstock are all awed by the emergence of moths and butterflies from their chrysalis. They have lovely evenings, eating in the arbor. One night Mrs. Comstock dances in the moonlight. Philip is called home to Chicago by his father’s poor health. Elnora is very sad, but honors Philip’s engagement.

Planning to teach for the school year, Elnora goes to an institute for a week. While she is gone, her mother rents a house in town, so Elnora won’t have to walk three miles to school and back every day. She cleans up her appearance and buys nice dresses. When Elnora starts school, Mrs. Comstock makes a fine hostess for Elnora’s friends. They are happy during the school year, but in the spring return to their cabin near the Limberlost.

In Chicago, Philip plans a ball for Edith, his intended. She is to wear yellow, trimmed with lavender and the hall is decked with these colors. Edith is beautiful in a delicate dress and jewels. When they are about to lead the grand march, however, a yellow emperor moth strays into the room and Philip catches it, leaving the hall to give instructions to have it sent to Elnora.

Edith is furious, throwing Philip’s ring on the floor. “I step aside for no one,” she says. Philip is embarrassed by the scene and decides it is the last straw. Edith has been toying with him too long. He now realizes he should have a care for himself in his marriage. He rushes to the Limberlost, but both Mrs. Comstock and Elnora are cool to him. Elnora does not want him to regret his previous commitment. 

Elnora expects Edith will turn up and look for Philip. She does, arriving with friends and Philip’s sister. She berates Elnora, insisting,”I have been promised to Philip my whole life. I will not give him up.” Elnora says she has made no promises to Philip, has honored their relationship. When Edith leaves, Elnora writes to her mother and Philip, slipping away without leaving an address.

Elnora goes to Mackinac Island in the very northern part of Michigan, where she knows that “Freckles,” the previous caretaker of the Limberlost, is living with his family. They, the O’More family, welcome her. For two months, Philip does not know where she is. He is fearful for her and has a nervous breakdown. 

Edith also arrives on Mackinac Island, a popular summer resort for city people. She has also been suffering. She tells her friend Hart that she no longer believes Philip belongs to her. As they sit near the ferry, they watch the O’Mores get off the boat, and with them Elnora. They write to Philip, telling him they have found Elnora. 

Mr. O’More asks Elnora whether she likes the island, but Elnora is homesick for the Limberlost. “I like enough of a fight for things that I always remember how I got them,” she says. “I like sufficient danger to put an edge on life. This is so tame.” 

Edith bemoans her former selfishness and pride, says she is sick of society. When a yellow emperor moth appears, she carefully captures it and brings it to Elnora. And when Philip comes to find her, Elnora at last accepts him. She is “unspeakable happy.”

It may seem at first that Elnora is collecting only for the sake of money for books, tuition and clothes, but she has love and reverence for everything she has learned from the swamp. Philip even suggests she has no need for college. Stratton-Porter (the Bird Woman in the story) herself worked to protect the Limberlost and wrote nature study books, even making the photographs herself. Collecting aims at scientific study and habitat protection.

Though Stratton-Porter’s writing is somewhat treacly and she seems to enjoy portraying over-wrought emotions, the characters are honest and their relationships plausible. The book is a testament to the beauty of the natural world, contrasting it with man-made beauty. Something of a country girl myself, I loved the many descriptions of light, landscape, woods and plants.

 

Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau

Louise Erdrich

At 19, Patrice (whose friends call her Pixie) is the sole support of her household, her mother and younger brother. She works at a jewel bearing plant on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota, where her keen eyesight and dexterous fingers are good at the delicate work. Patrice’s story is told in The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich [published 2020].

Patrice’s older sister Vera left to go to Minneapolis and get married, but her family has not heard from her in months, which makes them worry. Their father is a troublesome alcoholic who only comes by the house now and then to beg for money. Her mother is a keeper of the old ways of their Chippewa tribe. The family is also Catholic, but Patrice is much more attuned to her mother’s habits. Both she and her mother feel that Vera is in trouble.

Patrice decides to go to Minneapolis to look for her sister. Taking as much time away from work as she dares, she meets her friend Wood Mountain on the train. He is going to a boxing match. He advises her to look for “the scum,” in the city. Patrice has no trouble finding them! A beautiful Native American girl, they are apparently looking for her!

Though reluctant, Patrice bravely contracts with Jack to be an entertainer in a bar if he will take her to the addresses she has where Vera might be. She does shows in a Babe, the Blue Ox, costume for two nights, but waitresses warn her the costume is poisonous. She is also sobered by what she sees at the addresses she has, evidence of sex slavery. Vera is nowhere to be found, but her baby is. 

Wood Mountain comes to Minneapolis, helping Patrice escape. They also take Vera’s baby, who responds strongly to Wood Mountain. He names the little boy after his father. Arriving home, Patrice’s mother takes in the baby as if it were her own.

Patrice has traumatic dreams from what she saw in the city. She tells Thomas, the tribal leader, but none of them wants to deal with police. Patrice, who was once homecoming queen of her class, and also valedictorian, is loved by Barnes, the blonde high school math teacher. She does not encourage him. She is also a little wary of Wood Mountain, though less resistant. 

In the winter, Patrice chops wood, runs her trap lines. One day she falls into a snow hole. It is warm there and she falls asleep, but knows it is the entrance to the home of a hibernating bear. The experience feels wonderful to her. Coming home one night, she and her brother see a sleeping form in an abandoned cabin near their house. They get older men to investigate. It is the frozen body of Patrice’s dead father. 

The funeral ceremonies bring many people to Patrice’s house, including Millie Cloud, a Chippewa scholar studying at the university and taking notes on tribal lore. Fires are lit to thaw the ground enough for the burial. Patrice’s mother cooks. 

Thomas, the tribal leader, is enmeshed in the threat by a U.S. senator to make laws which will terminate the Turtle Mountain tribal reservation, re-locate the members and take their lands. He writes letters every night to whoever he can think of to gain their support. To get the money to send a delegation to Washington, D.C., the tribe stages a boxing match. Wood Mountain defeats his rival in the main contest, but it is bloody and he gives up fighting.

On March 2, 1954, Patrice is part of the delegation to Washington. She goes to help Millie Cloud, who is terrified of testifying, and also to give testimony on her work at the jewel bearing plant. Patrice is not scared. “I do things perfectly when enraged,” she tells herself.

On the way home, Thomas has a stroke at the train station in Minneapolis. Patrice sits with him in the hospital, invoking the songs her mother sings to her. She also stays with Millie Cloud at her apartment, asking her what she would have to do to become a lawyer. But what should she do about Wood Mountain? They have had sex. He does not want to go anywhere, wants only to stay in their home area.

Patrice and her mother have always thought Vera would come home. Vera has been ravaged, addicted, but people help her, take care of her. When Patrice gets back from Washington, Vera is home. Wood Mountain has made the cradle board for the baby, Vera’s son. Patrice sees that Wood Mountain is falling in love with Vera. “I love both of you,” he tells Patrice, but Patrice accepts it. “You love Vera,” she says.

The Turtle Mountain reservation is not terminated. Wood Mountain gets a job driving a school bus, so he and Vera can marry and fix up the unoccupied cabin to live in. Millie will pay Patrice’s mother as an informant for her anthropological work, which lifts the responsibility from Patrice. She can find a way to go to school! The end of the story finds Patrice and her mother drinking birch water syrup in the spring.

Within the context of the possible, and without shirking any of her family responsibilities, we are sure that Patrice will make a life for herself. I have no doubt but that Louise Erdrich endowed Patrice with her own feisty spirit. The oldest of seven, Erdrich is an accomplished author and owns a bookstore in Minneapolis, Birchbark Books, which has been thriving since 2001. 

Ruth Asawa Lanier

Ruth Asawa, 1980

Ruth Asawa was born in 1926 in Norwalk, California to a family of Japanese truck farmers. The middle child of seven, everyone in the family had to work hard. By age 10, Ruth wanted to be an artist. In 1942, her father was pulled out of his strawberry field and taken away to detention. The rest of the family was ordered to report to a relocation center at the Santa Anita racetrack. 

They stayed six months, during which Ruth studied drawing with several Disney animators who had also been detained. They were moved to a camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. Ruth wrote letters and collected testimonials on behalf of her father, requesting authorities to let him join the family.

When she finished high school, Ruth attended Milwaukee State Teachers College, hoping to become an art teacher. She was not allowed, however, because of her Japanese ancestry, and so did not finish her degree. Instead she joined other artists at the experimental Black Mountain college in North Carolina. At Black Mountain, Ruth found in Joseph Albers, a German artist trained at the Bauhaus, a life-long mentor. Albers gave out design problems: “Draw what you see, not what you know.” Empty space was as important as the drawing's content.

The school was chronically poor and chaotic, but Ruth thrived. She did heavy work in the dairy and in the fields, keeping farmer’s hours. In 1947, she was given an opportunity to teach for the summer in Mexico by the American Friends Service. Traveling there with Joseph and Anni Albers, she reveled in the bold, saturated colors and learned a basket-making technique using twists of wire. When she returned to Black Mountain, she focused on this, mounting an exhibition of baskets in 1948.

That year, Ruth met a young architect, Albert Lanier. He had come to Black Mountain seeking creative freedom, a modern experimental approach. Soon, he and Ruth were inseparable. They began planning and dreaming of life together, but the road was not easy. Both of their parents were set against a marriage, and only two states in 1949 allowed it. Others considered inter-racial marriage “miscegenation.”

Albert went to San Francisco and became a carpenter’s apprentice. Ruth stayed at Black Mountain, becoming a student leader when it exploded into conflict. Absence increased their determination to marry and they did in 1949 in a loft in the produce district of San Francisco which Albert had found as a live-in studio. Buckminster Fuller made their rings, and friends made a dress for Ruth. 

Ruth wanted six children. Their first came that year, Aiko, plus they adopted a baby of about the same age, Xavier. Ruth nursed them both, amid her work of making wire sculptures and cooking abundant meals for all of them. By 1952, Albert’s parents came around, Ruth’s sister Kimiko came to help, and a third child, Hudson, was born.

It was a time of great productivity for Ruth. Her work was showing at the Peridot Gallery in New York, plus in exhibitions and magazines. Her wire sculptures were growing bigger, translucent shapes in light and shadow.  Time magazine noted her “economy of means, simple shapes.” In 1956 Adam was adopted, and two more babies were born, Addie in 1958 and Paul in 1959, to bring the number of children to six. A friend said, “anything Ruth touches becomes art. She could make art of a mud puddle if she wished.”

Albert was also busy, especially interested in the preservation of old buildings. In 1960, he opened his own office, Lanier and Sherrill. The family moved into several rented apartments before Albert built them a large house organized around space and light, with a big, sunny garden in Noe Valley.

Ruth had a solo show at the de Young museum in San Francisco, becoming an advocate and trustee. She didn’t like selling her work, but as a working artist, she became good at balancing life and art. When her children brought home depressing handouts from school to be colored in, she and others from the Noe Valley PTA began a summer arts program staffed by artists and volunteers. In time their project fanned out through all the schools in the city. A new federal program, CETA, created public service jobs and Ruth’s group applied for funds. They also developed a depot for art supplies.

Ruth became known to developers in San Francisco. She was asked to create a fountain for the revitalized Ghirardelli Square. Her fanciful design included sea turtles, frogs and mermaids, one modeled on her neighbor. The landscape architect, Lawrence Halprin, hated it. There was a fight, but Ruth stood her ground and the developer supported her. Installed at night, in 1968, the fountain is beloved. The mayor put Ruth on the Arts Commission.

Ruth also made a fountain near Union Square of figures and scenes from around the city, molded in baker’s clay by many hands, and cast in bronze. She had many other commissions and had begun to campaign for a dedicated arts high school in the city.

In 1984, Ruth was 57. She and Albert went to Europe where a museum for the Albers was being dedicated. They had a wonderful month, but Ruth was having odd symptoms. She was diagnosed with lupus, and underwent treatment. Eventually she began to get better, though the lupus waxed and waned over the next years. It didn’t slow Ruth down much, though. In 1985, she toured Japan’s art and gardens.

Reparations for Japanese who had been interned came in 1988. Ruth worked on a large memorial wall in San Jose which she said was “very personal, but also very generic.” She started speaking about her war time experience and the healing power of art. She got an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State, and was finally given her bachelor’s degree by the University of Wisconsin. At San Francisco State she made a peaceful garden of remembrance with ten boulders, one for each of the war-time relocation camps.

When discussions began about rebuilding the de Young Museum, Ruth was full of ideas. She thought it should be located where it had always been, in Golden Gate park, and that it should have an education tower. Ruth attended the 2006 opening, in a wheelchair. A permanent exhibition of Ruth’s wire sculptures hangs in the tower lobby.

Albert died in 2008 and Ruth’s own fragile health kept her from attending the funeral. When her children broached the sale of a painting for the sake of Ruth’s home care, she came once again to the notice of New York’s art market. One of her early works sold for $1.4 million and Ruth was recognized as an important mid-century modern artist. She died in her sleep in 2013.

At a memorial service, her son Xavier said his mother was known for “patience, passion, talking eyes, no complaints.” In an interview, her daughter Addie said, “her true legacy is the art of living … the highest art is the art of living well and she managed to do that.”

Ruth’s story is well-told by Marilyn Chase in Everything She Touched [published 2020]. I have lived around Ruth Asawa’s art for years, as I consider San Francisco home. My sister and I recently reminded each other of the delightful mermaid fountain in Ghirardelli Square. And I am completely in agreement with Ruth’s methods of making an art of your own life.

Mary Garth Vincy

Rachel Power, Middlemarch 1994

Most people who read Middlemarch [published in 1871-1872 by George Eliot] assume that Dorothea Brooke is the main character. But Middlemarch, a provincial town in the English Midlands, is full of characters. I liked Mary Garth best.

Mary grew up a little hoyden, a boisterous tomboy, playing especially with her neighbor Fred Vincy. We first meet her at 22, when she has grown up short, plain and nut-brown. She is working at Stone Court as a companion and nurse to old Mr. Featherstone, a wealthy landlord at the end of his life. Mr. Featherstone has always favored Fred, but Fred is idle, spoiled and hoping to inherit some of Featherstone's money.

We are treated to the delightful picture of Mary’s parents’ home, where her mother is teaching her youngest children their letters, while also making pies and doing some washing. Mary’s father is a very capable farm and land manager who works for others, but is too kind, not always getting paid, thus making his family “live in a small way.” 

Fred begs Mary to marry him, based on their long friendship. But Mary is “shrewdly bitter. Honesty was her reigning virtue.” “How can you stand to be so idle?” She asks Fred. “I will give you no encouragement.” In fact Mr. Garth stands surety on a debt Fred has incurred, and when Fred cannot pay, Mrs. Garth and Mary’s small savings must be used to pay it.

As Mr. Featherstone is dying, he begs Mary to take his keys and burn one of the wills he has made. She will not touch any of it. After Featherstone’s death, when the wills are read, it is found that Fred was to inherit £10,000, but this bequest has been superseded by a later will. Fred is in despair and falls ill.

Mary feels she must take another situation, a teaching job, but when her father gets more work, he tells her she may stay home and help her mother. Fred goes back to school and finishes, but he doesn’t want to become a cleric. He is afraid to ask Mary again about marriage, but asks his friend Farebrother to find out for him if there is any hope. In the process, Fred finds that Farebrother himself had some hope of marrying Mary. Mary says Fred must do something worthy, but she has a strong feeling for him. “You are too delightfully ridiculous,” she mocks.

Mr. Garth finds he has too much work and begins to train Fred to help him. Fred loves to be outdoors and promises to work hard. Mrs. Garth is not convinced, but she will wait and see. We find the Garth children under the apple tree, reading Ivanhoe! Mary is happy about Fred’s work. “I have a very secular mind,” she says, amusement in her glance. She cannot see that Fred would have been a good churchman.

Later, as a result of his own folly, the banker Bullstrode must leave Middlemarch. He wants to do something for his loyal wife’s family and she and Mr. Garth agree to place Fred on Bullstrode’s farm at Stone Court. Fred will manage it and he and Mary can marry. Mr. Garth finds Mary in a pink kerchief in the garden, swinging her little sister. She says her feelings for Fred haven’t changed. Fred can hardly believe it when Mary tells him about the plan.

Fred and Mary do marry and live in solid, mutual happiness. Fred becomes a good farmer and eventually can purchase stock of his own. He remains interested in horses, but when taking dangerous jumps at a hunt, sees Mary and their three sons in his mind and moderates his actions. Mary writes a small book on education. They maintain a bright hearth at Stone Court until they are both white-haired.

Middlemarch is full of the most delicate and intricate relations between the characters’ inner lives, their aspirations and their feelings for one another. For instance, Mary’s mother would rather Mary align herself with good Mr. Farebrother, but she accepts Mary’s choice. And Farebrother steps out to preserve Fred from sliding back into idle ways. Mary is staunch. She likes Fred best.

Our main characters are often related. Mr. Garth refuses to work for Bullstrode once he understands the banker’s shady past and ill-gotten gains. But Bullstrode’s wife is Fred’s aunt, and she sets out to do something for Fred’s family. Mary’s path does not cross with Dorothea’s, but Fred’s sister Rosamund makes an important revelation to Dorothea.

Essentially the book is a morality tale, describing the relations of people in one town. I did not find it very scenic or atmospheric, and in fact the most charming scenes all involve Mary and her family! Middlemarch has been looming for a long time in my mind, as a book I should have read. Somehow I kept putting it off! But I am happy to now understand its indelible characters, the lofty ideas of Dorothea and Will Ladislaw, the regret with which Lydgate gives in to his pretty wife’s need for money and status, and the inexorable way Bullstrode’s early grasping at money cannot be excused by his later Christian justifications.

There is more to the book: politics and reform, medical advances, farming practices and art are all glancingly brought in. It is set in 1828 and the question of whether change can happen without violent revolution hangs over it. The reforms in England of 1832 seem to indicate that yes, they can. And the high principles of some of the characters, including Mary and Dorothea, show some of how this can happen.