Come join along for some book club fun!
Vintage Book Club
Here is how it works. At the beginning of every month I announce the book we will be reading for the month.
At the end of the month I update this post with some discussion questions. We use the comments section below to share our thoughts with each other.
Since this is a blog geared towards vintage living, most of the books that I select are related to vintage life.
The book may be an actual vintage book written in the early to mid 20th century. Or it may be a more current book that explores a topic from that era, or is set in that era.
I am so excited to go on a reading adventure with you!
Make sure you subscribe to the blog so you will be notified when the discussion questions get posted.
That is also the best way to stay updated on the new book selections every month!
VINTAGE BOOK CLUB SELECTION: October 2021
This month we will read A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich.
This book is very special to me as it was my Grandma’s favorite story. I read it for the first time several years ago, shortly after my Grandma died at the age of 92.
As I read the book, I was able to make the connection as to why it was her favorite book. I imagine it was easy for Grandma to relate to the main character, Abbie Deal. I believe many of the themes that echo throughout the book are things that my Grandma wrestled with in her own life.
This is a beautiful story and I am excited to read it along with you all!
From the book description:
“In A Lantern in Her Hand, Abbie accompanies her family to the soon-to-be state of Nebraska. There, in 1865, she marries and settles into a sod house of her own. The novel describes Abbie’s years of child-raising, of making a frontier home able to withstand every adversity. A disciplined writer knowledgeable about true stories of pioneer days in Nebraska, Bess Streeter Aldrich conveys the strength of everyday things, the surprise of familiar faces, and the look of the unspoiled landscape during different seasons. Refusing to be broken by hard experience, Abbie sets a joyful example for her family- and her readers.”
Are you ready to dive into A Lantern in Her Hand?
Where to find the book:
And of course, your local library!
Happy reading!
Book Club Discussion
Did you all enjoy reading A Lantern in Her Hand? I am excited to hear your thoughts on the book.
My copy of this book has an essay at the beginning of it, written by Bess Streeter Aldrich. She shares the story behind her story. To begin, I want to share a quote from the essay.
“‘A Lantern in Her Hand’ was written to please noone but my own consciousness of the character of many of those pioneer mothers. It was written in the so-called ‘mad twenties’ when most of the best selling books were about sophistication, flaming youth, or far-flung countries. There was some youth in it, but not of the flaming type. There was no sophistication, for Abbie Deal was of the soil. There was not even diversity of scene, for Abbie was only a homemaker. ‘Lantern’ seemed destined to be lost in the wave of the popular type of the times. That it has made new friends each year since that day might be a bit of a lesson for young writers. Regardless of the popular literary trend of the times, write the thing which lies close to your heart.”
I love this quote and her heartfelt advice. And I love the fact that A Lantern in Her Hand defied the popular trends of its time.
Here are some questions for consideration:
- What is your favorite quote from the book?
- How do you see Abbie’s friendships with Sarah and Christine change throughout the book?
- What are some of the themes that you picked up on in this book?
- What do you think about Abbie’s sacrifice of her dreams in order to boost the dreams of her children?
- Do you think Abbie would have been happy if she had married Dr. Ed Matthews instead of Will?
- Abbie was very hesitant to leave Iowa. Do you think in the end she regretted her family’s move to Nebraska?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Hurrah! I am glad you chose this book.
Thank you! I think it will be meaningful for all of us.
Looking forward to it!
I’ll look for it on my bookshelf tonight!
Yay! I’m glad you will be joining us.
Reading A Lantern… now. I am enjoying the writing style and descriptions!! Such grit the pioneers had!
I’m glad you are enjoying it!
Do you have a list of questions or observations you would like for us to comment on for “A Lantern In Her Hand”?
I’ll have some posted by the end of the week!
I have more thoughts that I will share later, but for now I want to share my favorite quote from the book. This comes after Abbie’s children try to convince her to move out of her home. “There would never be another real home for her. Home was something besides so much lumber and plaster. You built your thoughts into the framework. You planted a little of your heart with the trees and shrubbery. It was the only old house the children had ever known. There ought to be a home for children to come to,-and their children,-a central place to which they could always bring their joys and sorrows,-an old familiar place for them to return to on Sundays and Chrismases. An old home ought always to stand like a mother with open arms. It ought to be here waiting for the children to come to it,-like homing pigeons.”
Hi Maggie and other Book Club Members,
The passage you share, Maggie is one that I picked out too! I think a sense of place is so important. I identified whole-heartedly with Abbie in this regard. Years ago, facing divorce, I had to determine whether or not to sell my house. I was alone in it, my children having left home, and it was not in particularly good shape. The prudent thing to do was to sell it and buy a much smaller place that would not need as much maintenance. Both of my sons told me they would support my decision to sell, but there was something inside of me that wanted to keep a “home base” for them. I did so, renovating the house along the way and since then it has remained a solid base for them and has become a base for my new husband and stepchildren too. Abbie’s home served that same purpose for her children, and her great-grandchildren, but also, I suspect for the community that sprang up around her. Years after she passed on, even if there were new owners, I am sure her house was “the Deal house.”
I was surprised at how many passages in this book caused me to stop, re-read them and let them soak in. It is a testament to the book that throughout all the years, the themes of the book still come through loud and clear and resonate with the reader. So many things have changed since those pioneer days, but the basic instincts of mothers to sacrifice for their children and the longing for a sense of purpose and place have not changed.
With that in mind, I would like to quote from the beginning of the book. It is a passage that made me tear up just a bit as I read it. She is describing the landscape of the Midwest:
“There are times when hot winds come out of the southwest and parch it with their feverish breath. There are periods of monotonous drought and periods of dreary rain; but between those onslaughts there are days so perfect, so filled with clover odors and the rich, pungent smell of newly turned loam, so summac-ladened and apple-burdened, that to the prairie-born there are no others as lovely by mountain or lake or sea.”
That passage resonated with me, a child of the prairie and now a woman who lives just miles from the ocean. I have seen many sights of the world, but I think none of them compares to the beauty of a Midwest field in the spring or the fall when then eye has no impediments to the sweep of the land. There is something in my soul that needs that sight and is fed when I see it.
So, thank you Maggie, for bringing me back to this book. I enjoyed it this time around more than the first time I read it. I am sorry if I strayed from the questions. The writer in me could spend a lot of time talking about the structure of the book. (I was amazed at the pacing of the events) However, the book took me to the heart of being a woman and a native of the Midwest and that is what I chose to reflect on here. I know you will forgive me, and I have a feeling Abbie would too.
I appreciate your thoughts so much! Please do not feel bad for “straying” from the questions, they are just there for inspiration. I would much rather read your eloquent thoughts on how this book touched you personally.
I love that you have created that special home for your children (and grandchildren and nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews) to return to. It sounds like you went through quite a refining process in order to keep it. But now that you are on this side of that struggle, I am sure that it is that much sweeter for you to have that sanctuary of a home for your family.
Here are a few more of my thoughts on the story. When I first read this book several years ago there were a few themes that really stuck with me. And when I read the story again, they still stood out to me.
One theme is the hope that Abbie and Will put into the upcoming year, as if things were guaranteed to change for the better in the upcoming year. “Always next year” was repeated many times throughout the book, whether it was rain to break the drought, more trees to transform the climate, a stable situation that would allow Abbie to visit her family in Iowa. Whatever the issue at hand, they held onto hope that “next year” they would be able to move forward. And while overall, year after year, they did progress and grow and change, it was at times painstakingly slow.
I also like watching the growth in Abbie’s friendship with Christine. Two women who are so different yet, they forged a friendship born out of mutual hardship. The landscape transformed around them as they aged. I wonder how often they talked together about the vast emptiness they moved to as young women. I love their faithfulness to each other. The way Christine came up and insisted on walking Abbie home in the blizzard, ultimately saving her life. And the way Abbie insisted Christine be invited to an event that more “refined” women were coming to.
I have to admit this was a difficult read for me. The only thing that kept me going was that I knew Abbie wasn’t killed off but would live her life on her own terms.
If she had chosen to marry the doctor her life would have physically been easier and she would have been able to enjoy the pursuit of her music and art. Abbie had the mindset of “making it work” no matter what. But her heart said Will and I have to think she was aware of what she was giving up world-wise.
The hardships she and Will went through to make the land provide a living were tremendous. Reading of the cold, scarcity of a variety of food to eat, the failure of crops for multiple years and the belief “there is always next year” … whew In my personal journal writing, each day I note 3 things I am thankful for. While reading this book I notice the repeated 1) warm house 2) good food 3) my job!
As parents John and I have always believed that setting our children up for success was a priority. Many time it meant changing our own plans and rearranging life to make that happen. Abbie did that to ensure an education for each of her children. And lots of tough love-watching them leave home at an earlier age than normal to achieve that education.
I was sorry that Abbie was widowed early. She seems to have made her peace with the way her life turned out, and did what was necessary to be able to stay in her house and small piece of land.
The book was a good reminder of what “pioneer stock” really was. Tough. Gritty. Rewards unspoken and few until the end when they were able to look back and see how far they had come.
testing
It worked!
I had not read this book, but had heard it described as a book about a woman who gives up her dreams and sees them realized in the lives of her children and grandchildren. I probably would not have read it if it had not been a bookclub selection, as I was expecting the main character to be portrayed as a martyr or a saint. Abbie Deal was neither. In fact, one of the things I really liked about the book is the way all of the characters are described, but not judged. The Lutz family certainly prospered materially and the Reinmueller’s emphasis was on increasing their acreage; but they are not presented as less admirable than the Deals. It would have been easy to write a different fate for Ed Matthews, there is even some foreshadowing of trouble during his proposal to Abbie; but he becomes a successful doctor with a “stylish wife”. Even grumbly Grandma Deal (who I have to admit made me smile-don’t we all know someone like that?) redeemed herself somewhat with the gold that allowed Isabelle to have her piano.
Like others, I found myself stopping and re-reading many descriptions to let them soak in, but the one that had the most impact on me was the description of grieving found at the start of Chapter 22:
“It is the prerogative of the dramatist to lower the curtain upon a scene and raise it upon a later one,–of the story-teller to close one chapter and begin another when time has passed. Real life is not so. There is no kind interval of time as the settings of the various experience shift, –no heart-easing period of days between the chapters of life.
Life is Time’s galley-slave, forever shackled to its relentless master. If its hardest blow be dealt at three o’clock, then four o’clock must be met and five and six,-the first dark, agonizing night and the first pale, torturing dawn.
And so it is unreal, even cowardly, to leave Abbie Deal wresting with her deepest emotions, -living two lives; one within herself, wracked and tortured,-the other, an outward one which met all the old duties and trivial obligations with composure. . . ”
On a happier note, I could really relate to the importance of the music and books that Will and Abbie were somehow able to provide for their children. That was a priority for my parents, also. All of us have found our own paths from the gifts passed down-there are teachers, wordsmiths, quilters and musicians, but the love for books and reading is one we all share. I’m so glad Maggie chose her Grandmother’s favorite book and that I didn’t miss reading it!