Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Betty MacDonald and the pen and I

egg_german_1951_paperback_FRONT
Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.


Betty MacDonald fan club fans,

we are going to organize a new Betty MacDonald fan club  contest. 

More info in September!

If you'd like to share some of your letters by Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen and other family members join our Betty MacDonald fan club letter research team, please. 


Betty MacDonald fan club letter research team got some very important letters by Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen and other family members.

Betty MacDonald, her sister Mary Bard Jensen and the other family members wrote very witty and interesting letters.

We are going to present the best ones in  our next Betty MacDonald fan club item entitled ' The pen and I '. 

We got several new outstanding letters from Betty MacDonald fan club fans whose relatives had been in contact with Betty MacDonald and other family members.  

Thank you so much for your outstanding support.


Betty MacDonald fan club event team is very happy to hear from you and they got some really great ideas for the next International event. 

Thanks a lot!


Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli  and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.

Letizia Mancino's  magical Betty MacDonald Gallery  is a special gift for our Betty MacDonald fan club fans.  

Greta is going to share new info on her latest Betty MacDonald fan club project ' Betty MacDonald on Vashon Island '. 

We are looking for signed or dedicated first editions in great condition with dust jackets by Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen for our fans.

Betty MacDonald Memorial Award Winner Wolfgang Hampel  and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are working on an updated Betty MacDonald biography and new Betty MacDonald documentary.

Dearest new Betty MacDonald fan club fans you'll receive a very important message by Betty MacDonald fan club event team.

This message includes a very nice Betty MacDonald fan club surprise and many info on our current Betty MacDonald fan club projects.

Join one of our Betty MacDonald fan club research teams, please. 

Thanks a million in advance for your outstanding support.

Enjoy a new breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.

Don't miss fascinating Vita Magica program August - December 2016, please. 

Vita Magica was celebrating its 1st anniversary.   


Jamie-Lee with Ghost got over 8 million views and more than 68.000 people like the song.

This is our Betty MacDonald fan club ESC 2016 TOP 5 according to Betty MacDonald fan club ESC fans in 40 countries. 

Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island is a magical place.

Yours,
 
Simon
 


Don't miss this very special book, please.


Vita Magica 

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )


Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )

Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French ) 


Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD

Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I  

Betty MacDonald fan club groups 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  
 


 





Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles 







Dawid Brueckner It´s a beautiful reconstruction. Thank you Linde .


Unlike · Reply · 2 · 21 hrs


Bernd Kunze


Bernd Kunze we will be there, one year vita magica, congratulations Wolfgang Hampel and Rita Kocher.









Linde Lund Dearst Rita Kocher und Wolfgang Hampel Congratulations!!!! Happy Birthday Vita Magica and all the best for the future! All our love and best wishes from Linde, Astrid and Lund family
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Thomas Bödigheimer




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Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles.  




Following in Betty’s footsteps in Seattle:

or some small talk with Betty

Copyright 2011/2016 by Letizia Mancino
All rights reserved
translated by Mary Holmes


We were going to Canada in the summer. “When we are in Edmonton”, I said to Christoph Cremer, “let’s make a quick trip to Seattle”. And that’s how it happened. At Edmonton Airport we climbed into a plane and two hours later we landed in the city where Betty had lived. I was so happy to be in Seattle at last and to be able to trace Betty’s tracks!

Wolfgang Hampel had told Betty’s friends about our arrival.
They were happy to plan a small marathon through the town and it’s surroundings with us. We only had a few days free. One should not underestimate Wolfgang’s talent in speedily mobilizing Betty’s friends, even though it was holiday time. E-mails flew backwards and forwards between Heidelberg and Seattle, and soon a well prepared itinerary was ready for us. Shortly before my departure Wolfgang handed me several parcels, presents for Betty MacDonald's friends. I rushed to pack the heavy gifts in my luggage but because of the extra weight had to throw out a pair of pajamas!

After we had landed we took a taxi to the Hotel in downtown Seattle. I was so curious to see everything. I turned my head in all directions like one of the hungry hens from Betty’s farm searching for food! Fortunately it was quite a short journey otherwise I would have lost my head like a loose screw!
Our hotel room was on the 22nd floor and looked directly out onto the 16-lane highway. There might have been even more than 16 but it made me too giddy to count! It was like a glimpse of hell! “And is this Seattle?” I asked myself. I was horrified! The cars racing by were enough to drive one mad. The traffic roared by day and night.
We immediately contacted Betty MacDonald's friends and let them know we had arrived and they confirmed the times when we should see them.

On the next morning I planned my first excursion tracing Betty’s tracks. I spread out the map of Seattle. “Oh dear” I realized “the Olympic Peninsula is much too far away for me to get there.”
Betty nodded to me! “Very difficult, Letizia, without a car.”

“But I so much wanted to see your chicken farm”

“My chickens are no longer there and you can admire the mountains from a distance”


But I wanted to go there. I left the hotel and walked to the waterfront where the State Ferry terminal is. Mamma mia, the streets in Seattle are so steep! I couldn’t prevent my feet from running down the hill. Why hadn’t I asked for brakes to be fixed on my shoes? I looked at the drivers. How incredibly good they must be to accelerate away from the red traffic lights. The people were walking uphill towards me as briskly as agile salmon. Good heavens, these Americans! I tried to keep my balance. The force of gravity is relentless. I grasped hold of objects where I could and staggered down.
In Canada a friend had warned me that in Seattle I would see a lot of people with crutches.

Betty laughed. “ It’s not surprising, Letizia, walking salmon don’t fall directly into the soft mouth of a bear!”
“ Betty, stop making these gruesome remarks. We are not in Firlands!”

I went further. Like a small deranged ant at the foot of a palace monster I came to a tunnel. The noise was unbearable. On the motorway, “The Alaskan Way Viaduct”, cars, busses and trucks were driving at the speed of light right over my head. They puffed out their poisonous gas into the open balconies and cultivated terraces of the luxurious sky- scrapers without a thought in the world. America! You are crazy!
“Betty, are all people in Seattle deaf? Or is it perhaps a privilege for wealthy people to be able to enjoy having cars so near to their eyes and noses to save them from boredom?”

“When the fog democratically allows everything to disappear into nothing, it makes a bit of a change, Letizia”

“ Your irony is incorrigible, Betty, but tell me, Seattle is meant to be a beautiful city, But where?”

I had at last reached the State Ferry terminal.

“No Madam, the ferry for Vashon Island doesn’t start from here,” one of the men in the ticket office tells me. ”Take a buss and go to the ferry terminal in West Seattle.”
Betty explained to me “The island lies in Puget Sound and not in Elliott Bay! It is opposite the airport. You must have seen it when you were landing!”
“Betty, when I am landing I shut my eyes and pray!”

It’s time for lunch. The weather is beautiful and warm. Who said to me that it always rains here?
“Sure to be some envious man who wanted to frighten you away from coming to Seattle. The city is really beautiful, you’ll see. Stay by the waterfront, choose the best restaurant with a view of Elliott Bay and enjoy it.”
“Thank you Betty!”

I find a table on the terrace of “Elliott’s Oyster House”. The view of the island is wonderful. It lies quietly in the sun like a green fleecy cushion on the blue water.
Betty plays with my words:
“Vashon Island is a big cushion, even bigger than Bainbridge which you see in front of your eyes, Letizia. The islands look similar. They have well kept houses and beautiful gardens”.

I relax during this introduction, “Bainbridge” you are Vashon Island, and order a mineral water.

“At one time the hotel belonging to the parents of Monica Sone stood on the waterfront.”
“Oh, of your friend Kimi!” Unfortunately I forget to ask Betty exactly where it was.

My mind wanders and I think of my mountain hike back to the hotel! “Why is there no donkey for tourists?” Betty laughs:

“I’m sure you can walk back to the hotel. “Letizia can do everything.””

“Yes, Betty, I am my own donkey!”

But I don’t remember that San Francisco is so steep. It doesn’t matter, I sit and wait. The waiter comes and brings me the menu. I almost fall off my chair!
“ What, you have geoduck on the menu! I have to try it” (I confess I hate the look of geoduck meat. Betty’s recipe with the pieces made me feel quite sick – I must try Betty’s favourite dish!)
“Proof that you love me!” said Betty enthusiastically “ Isn’t the way to the heart through the stomach?”

I order the geoduck. The waiter looks at me. He would have liked to recommend oysters.
“Geoduck no good for you!”
Had he perhaps read my deepest thoughts? Fate! Then no geoduck. “No good for me.”

“Neither geoduck nor tuberculosis in Seattle” whispered Betty in my ear!
“Oh Betty, my best friend, you take such good care of me!”

I order salmon with salad.

“Which salmon? Those that swim in water or those that run through Seattle?”

“Betty, I believe you want me to have a taste of your black humour.”

“Enjoy it then, Letizia.”

During lunch we talked about tuberculosis, and that quite spoilt our appetite.

“Have you read my book “The Plague and I”?”

“Oh Betty, I’ve started to read it twice but both times I felt so sad I had to stop again!”

“But why?” asked Betty “Nearly everybody has tuberculosis! I recovered very quickly and put on 20 pounds! There was no talk of me wasting away! What did you think of my jokes in the book?”

“Those would have been a good reason for choosing another sanitorium. I would have been afraid of becoming a victim of your humour! You would have certainly given me a nickname! You always thought up such amusing names!” Betty laughed.

“You’re right. I would have called you “Roman nose”. I would have said to Urbi and Orbi “ Early this morning “Roman nose” was brought here. She speaks broken English, doesn’t eat geoduck but she does love cats.”

“Oh Betty, I would have felt so ashamed to cough. To cough in your presence, how embarrassing! You would have talked about how I coughed, how many coughs!”

“It depends on that “how”, Letizia!”

“Please, leave Goethe quotations out of it. You have certainly learnt from the Indians how to differentiate between noises. It’s incredible how you can distinguish between so many sorts of cough! At least 10!”

“So few?”

”And also your descriptions of the patients and the nurses were pitiless. An artistic revenge! The smallest pimple on their face didn’t escape your notice! Amazing.”

“ I was also pitiless to myself. Don’t forget my irony against myself!”

Betty was silent. She was thinking about Kimi, the “Princess” from Japan! No, she had only written good things about her best friend, Monica Sone, in her book “The Plague and I”. A deep friendship had started in the hospital. The pearl that developed from the illness.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Betty, that an unknown seed can make its way into a mollusk in the sea and develop into a beautiful jewel?” Betty is paying attention.

“Betty, the friendship between you and Monica reminds me of Goethe’s poem “Gingo-Biloba”. You must know it?” Betty nods and I begin to recite it:

The leaf of this Eastern tree
Which has been entrusted to my garden
Offers a feast of secret significance,
For the edification of the initiate.

Is it one living thing.
That has become divided within itself?
Are these two who have chosen each other,
So that we know them as one?

The friendship with Monica is like the wonderful gingo-biloba leaf, the tree from the east. Betty was touched. There was a deep feeling of trust between us.
“Our friendship never broke up, partly because she was in distress, endangered by the deadly illness. We understood and supplemented each other. We were like one lung with two lobes, one from the east and one from the west!”
“A beautiful picture, Betty. You were like two red gingo-biloba leaves!”

Betty was sad and said ” Monica, although Japanese, before she really knew me felt she was also an American. But she was interned in America, Letizia, during the second world war. Isn’t that terrible?”

“Betty, I never knew her personally. I have only seen her on a video, but what dignity in her face, and she speaks and moves so gracefully!”

“Fate could not change her”

“Yes, Betty, like the gingo-biloba tree in Hiroshima. It was the only tree that blossomed again after the atom bomb!”

The bill came and I paid at once. In America one is urged away from the table when one has finished eating. If one wants to go on chatting one has to order something else.
“That’s why all those people gossiping at the tables are so fat!” Betty remarks. “Haven’t you seen how many massively obese people walk around in the streets of America. Like dustbins that have never been emptied!” With this typically unsentimental remark Betty ended our conversation.

Ciao! I so enjoyed the talk; the humour, the irony and the empathy. I waved to her and now I too felt like moving! I take a lovely walk along the waterfront.

Now I am back in Heidelberg and when I think about how Betty’s “Princessin” left this world on September 5th and that in August I was speaking about her with Betty in Seattle I feel very sad. The readers who knew her well (we feel that every author and hero of a book is nearer to us than our fleeting neighbours next door) yes we, who thought of her as immortal, cannot believe that even she would die after 92 years. How unforeseen and unexpected that her death should come four days after her birthday on September 1th. On September 5th I was on my way to Turkey, once again in seventh heaven, looking back on the unforgettable days in Seattle. I was flying from west to east towards the rising sun.


Betty MacDonald ART Photos of ICONS Amazing Ladies Pinter Betty MacDonald Quotes Famous Quotes by Betty MacDonald Quoteswave 1950s showing Betty MacDonald descending a staircase and other images  betty macdonald betty bard macdonald wurde 1908 in boulder colorado  photos and graphics betty family betty and friend photos and graphics betty family betty grandchild photo of Betty MacDonald and two children in 1950 costumes Click images for alternate views BETTY MacDONALD PHOTOGRAPH SIGNED DOCUMENT 281143 Betty MacDonald 39 s The Egg and I is published on October 3 1945 photos and graphics betty family betty and don on vashon MacDonald Betty I Biography 





antiquarisches Buch – Betty MacDonald – Das Ei und ich
gebrauchtes Buch – MacDonald, Betty – Das Ei und ich
antiquarisches Buch – MacDonald, Betty – Betty kann alles.


Die Insel und ich.



Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Betty MacDonald and Who is Who in Anybody can do anything


anybody can do anything_dutch_nd_hardcover_bookjacket - cleaned_FRONT


Betty MacDonald in the living room at Vashon on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.



Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
  

don't miss Vita Magica August. please with Wolfgang Hampel and a very special writer.


We know you'll have lots of fun and joy today!



Betty macDonald fan club newsletter August includes an updated 'Who is Who' in Anybody can do anything.

You can find the real persons not only very mysterious Dorita Hess but also the other persons in the book.

Very interesting!

We are going to publish some new Betty MacDonald fan club interviews  by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel.


 

Wolfgang Hampel and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are working on an updated Betty MacDonald biography. 


 
Good luck dear Wolfgang Hampel and team!

Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli will be back soon with some more huge surprises for his fans in 5 continents.


Don't miss a new  breakfast with Brad and Nick at the bookstore, please.


Don't miss it, please. 


Vita Magica is celebrating its 1st anniversary. 


Jamie-Lee with Ghost got over 8 million views and more than 68.000 people like the song.

 

Wishing you a very nice Tuesday,

Roland and Hercule Poirot




Don't miss this very special book, please.


Vita Magica

Betty MacDonald fan club

Betty MacDonald forum  

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I 

Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )

Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )

Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )

Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French ) 

Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)

Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University 

Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel 

Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD

Betty MacDonald fan club items 

Betty MacDonald fan club items  - comments

Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I  

Betty MacDonald fan club groups 

Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund  


Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles 


Dawid Brueckner It´s a beautiful reconstruction. Thank you Linde .


Unlike · Reply · 2 · 21 hrs
Bernd Kunze
Bernd Kunze we will be there, one year vita magica, congratulations Wolfgang Hampel and Rita Kocher.


Linde Lund Dearst Rita Kocher und Wolfgang Hampel Congratulations!!!! Happy Birthday Vita Magica and all the best for the future! All our love and best wishes from Linde, Astrid and Lund family
Like · Reply · 1 · 21 hrs
Thomas Bödigheimer
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 20 hrs
Rita Knobel Ulrich - Islam in Germany - a very interesting ZDF  ( 2nd German Television ) documentary with English subtitles.







ANYBODY CAN DO ANYTHING: BRING BACK BETTY MACDONALD!!

Several years ago a friend turned me on to a writer named Betty MacDonald, best known as the author of The Egg and I (1945) (the book that gave rise to the characters Ma and Pa Kettle), and who I say--let's start reading again! The book of hers I'm (re-)reading now is called Anybody Can Do Anything, and it's all about Seattle in the Depression, and Betty's wacky family--they're all back home, living with the chain-smoking, novel-reading, mild-mannered mother--headed up by the oldest sibling, Mary, and how Mary gets Betty, who is divorced with two young daughters, a succession of odd jobs for which Betty is completely and utterly unqualified.



Here's the conversation that ensues, for example, after Mary announces to Betty that she's volunteered her for a job "at the Western Insurance Company being private secretary to a perfectly darling man named Welton Brown." I tried to keep my voice normal as I asked, "Just what have you told this Welton Brown I could do, Mary?" Mary said, "Stop interrupting and you'll find out. Because Welton gets out a magazine, his secretary has to be able to type and take shorthand, know all about insurance, be familiar with advertising and layouts, draw well enough to illustrate the magazine and be able to write and edit articles. He'd really prefer someone who's been published." "Well," I said, "A--I'm only mediocre to rotten in shorthand and typing; B--I don't know anything about advertising or layouts; C--I majored in art in college but we never drew anything but plaster casts; D--I can't write and I've never had anything published and all my insurance information is mixed up with chickens." [an allusion to what would become her first book, see below]



Mary said, "Listen, Betty, I've known you for twenty-four years and you've never thought you could do ANYTHING. Now there's a depression and  jobs are hard to find and you've got two children to support and it's about time you grew up and changed your thinking to things you can do instead of things you can't do. Mull over your talents and build up your ego. A--you have to know insurance--you were married to an insurance salesman. B--You have to know advertising--you don't but I do and I can teach you. C--You have to be able to draw and you say you can only draw plaster casts--and what may I ask, could be more ideal training for an insurance company with all their accidents? D--Shorthand and typing--if  Welton Brown thinks he can get a court reporter who can do all those things he's a bigger jackass than I think he is. E--You have to be able to write and that is one thing you have to admit you can do. What about your children's stories--what about 'Sandra Surrenders'--I'll bet the Ladies' Home Journal would snap it up if we ever finished it." In other words, this is a book we could all use in our own Depression era, not because it has job-hunting tips but because of its complete lack of self-pity and huge sense of fun. Betty ends up working as a photo tinter, an organizer for a rabbit grower, a typer of bills for a florist, a dentist and a laboratory. She works for an oil promoter, a public stenographer, a Mr. Wilson who runs a pyramid scheme, and a gangster. Mary's also constantly setting Betty up on gruesome blind dates, and as the two of them good-naturedly dismiss the guy with roving hands as "Oh that old raper" and the elderly lech as "Probably just some lonely old buzzard who wants to meet some girls," I couldn't help reflecting upon how much we've lost in our dreadful anti-sex-discrimination-lawsuit era. For fun, the sisters (there are four of them) put on a pot of spaghetti, invite a crowd of artistes--some of  whom end up staying for years--and crowd around the gramophone or piano making fun of each other, smoking, drinking endless cups of coffee, putting on plays and/or singing. Actually, everyone in Betty's family, including her, chain-smoked, which probably did not help stave off the TB that killed her at the age of 50, but again, you have to appreciate her refusal to whine or blame. Here's the bridge from one job to another with which she alludes to her year in a sanitarium about which she wrote the also delightful The Plague and I:  "I finally collapsed with tuberculosis and was wheeled away from the Treasury Department. When I got well again I went to work for the National Youth Administration. The NYA and Mary would have seen eye to eye about a lot of things. Executives for instance. Mary believed that everybody but our collie was a potential executive and the NYA proved it. "



There's also a great chapter--"All the World's a Stage"--on the free entertainment to be found by going about the city ferreting out amateur dance and song recitals: "Then Miss Grondahl announced that she would play "Rustle of Spring" and "Hark, Hark the Lark." She had shed her gold cape and was simply clad in a sleeveless black satin dress and some crystal beads. She settled herself on the piano bench, folded her hands in her lap and began to play. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then suddenly, like running in backdoor in jumping rope, she lit into the first runs of "Rustle." Miss Grondahl was a vigorous very loud player but what made her performance irresistible to [Betty's sister] Dede and me were the large tufts of black hair which sprang quivering out of the armholes of her dress each time she lifted her hands at the end of a run or raised her arms for a crashing chord." Eventually, Betty re-marries, moves to Vashon Island, off the coast of Washington state, and begins working for a contractor with cost-plus government contracts (she would later write Onions in the Stew about her time there).


But first, Mary convinces her to write a book about her adventures on the remote chicken ranch to which she'd moved with her first husband (father to her two daughters): a marriage that had ended when Betty matter-of-factly packed up the kids one rainy, gloomy day, walked them down the hill, and boarded a bus for Seattle, never to return. The book was accepted by J. B. Lippincott, serialized in the Atlantic Monthly, and the rest was history, thereby proving Mary's theory that anybody can do anything, or as she triumphantly told Betty, "You just feel successful, but imagine how I feel. All of a sudden my big lies have started coming true!" Would that we all had a sister Mary! And long live Betty MacDonald.



23 comments:



  1. Adapt, improvise, and overcome...civilian style. And I also remember this book being on my mom's shelf. She put it into practice too.
    Reply
  2. Wow! You know, I have ALWAYS said: Anyone can do anything if they set their minds to it. It is only the "I can't do its" who can't do something. Anyway, Wow!
    Reply
  3. She also wrote the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books which were a staple of my first-grade experience, and probably the reason I turned out half-civilized. Any series with fathers named Hearthrug, kids named Harvard and Cornell, and a pig who corrects people's table manners has got to be a winner. Amazing lady.
    Reply
  4. I know the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books come highly recommended--I've not gotten to them so that's something to look forward to. Good to know that others know that Betty basically rocks!
    Reply
  5. Read "The Egg and I" many years ago and loved it. I'm glad to find out about her other books; I'll see if our library has got them. And I'm with you--you gotta love the attitude!
    Reply
  6. And I am posting this to my Facebook. Thanks for introducing her to me and I have to own a couple of those books... so I am off to Amazon!!
    Reply
  7. My book group read "The Egg and I" a few years ago and we all loved it. What struck us as so refreshing was her lack of sentimentality and introspection. It was so unlike most of the memoirs that we were reading at the time.
    Reply
  8. Favorite chapter title in the Egg & I: "I Learn to Hate Even Baby Chicks" -- just typing it makes me giggle. Love her! Thanks, Heather, for the reminder -- I read all her 'grown-up' books when I was in college year #1 and feeling quite overwhelmed. Stefanie
    Reply
  9. What a great story, Heather! Geographical note: Vashon Island isn't off the coast of WA. It's in Puget Sound! The actual coast is miles across the Olympic Peninsula. Vashon is one of those lovely places you can see from Seattle, and still see the Olympic Mountains beyond.
    Reply
  10. Whoops--thank you, Shannon. Geography has never been my strong suit--though the island did, as you say, sound beautiful...Happy New Year to you. I'm glad you are bringing a bit of comfort and hope to the prisoners...
    Reply
  11. How great to meet another Betty fan! I have loved (not too strong a word)her for years. I alswys cackle when I read Chapter 1 of The Egg and I, where Betty talks about her Gammy. Gammy likes to wear an "apern" and makes cookies from anything she might find in the icebox. I could go on and on but like you, I re-read Ms Mac yearly. Thanks for the awesome post. Karen Hesson
    Reply
  12. Hi from down under. I absolutely am addicted to Betty MacDonald books! Betty is the wittiest, cleverest writer with the most succint, keenest observations of people. I cannot fathom that she was born in 1908! The social pictures she evokes are still relevant to today eg the ever changing moods of teenage daughters in Onions in the Stew.I was fortunate to get a copy of a photo taken of Betty MacDonald and Claudette Colbert(the actress who played her in the movie of The Egg and I)
    Reply
  13. I am so glad to know of another Betty MacDonald fan! And that social picture of the teenage girls, growing up on the island, is priceless. I love the part where one of them wails, (apropos of her no doubt flawless young skin): "Mother, just LOOK at the pores in my nose! They're as big as the holes in a cribbage board..." And that time they were trying to collect driftwood and saw a washing machine floating around in the water and tried to lasso it in with the sash from Betty's bathrobe...or something like that...Anyway, she is as fresh, smart, and unbelievably funny and relevant as ever. And that is grand you have a photo of her and Claudette Colbert...
    Reply
  14. Heather, you turned me on to dear Betty MacDonald and I still think ANYBODY CAN DO ANYTHING would be a great movie. Thanks for posting this. Love the photos!
    Reply
  15. Stumbled across this post while poking around the 'Net for pig farrowing shed plans...Betty and I would get along fine, except for the chain-smoking bit. I actually went to elementary school (on Vashon Island) with one of her grandsons and can still remember when "Onions in the Stew" was the hit play of our community theater group one winter. We Island kids all grew up reading "Mrs. Piggle Wiggle" stories, too. And what has that done for me? Well, now my partner and I have our own farm in Maine, where we keep Scottish Highland Cattle, inumerable chickens for meat and eggs, a few guinea fowl, and heritage-breed pigs. We love to get in over our heads--and sometimes succeed--with projects we're not quite qualified to do, like building pig farrowing sheds! Thanks for a delightful post.
    Reply
  16. Anyone who is looking, anywhere, for "'Net for pig farrowing shed plans" deserves a gold star in my book! So thrilled to meet another Betty fan PLUS someone who actually grew up on Vashon Island! The LA Times ran a piece in their travel section a few weeks ago--apparently Betty's place has been turned into a B and B and you can stay there! Though it probably wouldn't be the same without Joan whining "You WANT us to look ugly, Betty!" and Don mixing martinis and Anne spilling Tropical Passion nail polish on one of Betty's borrowed cashmere sweaters and Betty, cigarette in hand, making clam fritters. Your spread in Maine sounds divine. (Having grown up on the coast of New Hampshire, I'm forever a New Englander at heart). All the best with your cattle, chickens and pigs! And thanks for the comment...
    Reply
  17. Betty MacDonald is beloved all over the world. Betty MacDonald fan club has members in 40 countries. Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. Betty MacDonald's sister Alison Bard Burnett is as witty as her famous sister Betty MacDonald and shared the most delightful family stories.
    ReplyDelete
  18. Betty rocks! This is so good to know...
    Reply
  19. Betty MacDonald rocks the world and she really deserves it.
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  20. I've been a Betty MacDonald fan for many years-- first read her books when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I'm glad that they are in print again and available.
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  21. Betty didn't die from TB, she had cancer, probably from all the x rays when she had TB.
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    1. Okay, well I guess you could say complications from TB, and either way, the point was that smoking probably contributed to it. . Whatever the case, thanks for the correction.