Garnette Arledge, author

Jane Austen of Vermont – Elswyth Thane
by Garnette Arledge

All my life since age 15 whenever I hit a bump and down into glum, I would often turn to Elswyth Thane’s books. It was her voice as much as the relationships and the history in the books that uplifted me. Her genre is that niche called Jane Austen’s.

A writer’s voice that had a fat chuckle. A kindly ironic voice making laid-back witty fun of the entanglements between people and everyday events but with a sympathetic heart so the endings are reasonable. A voice who knew people could fall in love with houses as well as with people and nature. A voice who scrupulously acknowledged her debt to various librarians, an author’s favorite colleagues.

Her books took me to Tibet, to England, to 19th Century Tammany New York, Colonial Williamsburg, and Mt. Vernon and into the Swamp Fox’s South Carolina. They took me into my imagination of what life could be like with a loving family who gallantly survives the spectrum of circumstances because they are compassionate with each other.

So when, this summer I turned once again as first I had, to Mrs. Beebe’s books, for Elswyth married the celebrity-naturalist and adventurer William Beebe, the hero of the undersea bathysphere, I was once again desperate for soul nourishment from the outside. Even meditation, my anchor had floated out of reach. My prayers weren’t prayers but pleadings. My dreams were broken; my heart arid. Then I was inspired to look up Elswyth Thane through the Mid-Hudson Library System on-line.

I found all the books of the Williamsburg series that had been my lifeboats. Also Queen’s Folly, The Tudor Wench, Tryst, Melody, Letter to a Stranger, Lost General, Potomac Squire that I knew. Then I found among others I had not read The Strength of the Hills with an update postscript from as late as 1972. Born in 1900, she passed on in 1984.

Strength is a slim book of 219 pages, with a drawing of a Vermont farmhouse in green ink on the cover. Unlike her other books published Duell Sloan and Pierce, this one came from Christian Herald House of Chappaqua NY. From a major publisher to a small publishing house. What happened to her career? Was it age, or had the joyous spirit diminished who had once relished miracles, celebrated the Celtic thin places – that link between visible and invisible, and wry jokes yet was restrained and good mannered always. As I re-read this sentence it seems to me that Elswyth Thane had an atavistic feel of Jane Austen, whom she frequently referenced. That might explain a lifelong writer's love affair with England, its houses, its gardens, its gentry, its first Queen Elizabeth and the Tudor age.

Anyway, I was feeling better about myself, as her voice always evoked, so I put Strength of the Hills away to read while visiting in Vermont in late August. I had had an intuition my life would change with that visit. I thought it was about spending time with a friend who is a deep healer and unabashedly robust notwithstanding her wintry age. Yet I showed my bedtime reading and told her the mystical strain that runs through all Elswyth’s books, she charged me with driving to Southern Vermont to find more about the author and her farm. "Her husband wrote a book about ants. It was great!" she said, launching the adventure.

Next, on the bright and beautiful morning, after a most pleasant drive through Vermont green, around mountains and ski resorts, white housed hamlets, my car curved down a steep hill into a bustling village with a sunwashed brick library housing a collection of autographed first additions behind glass, temperature controlled and an offer to spend time in the library researching. The head librarian kindly directed to Town Hall cum Police Station in the very center of town.

Coming through the door at the same time and introducing herself as the only native real estate agent in town, Meg Streeter knew immediately that her mother had known what everyone in Wilmington calls ‘Mrs. Beebe’ my author Elswyth. We settled down for a brief interview as I was then thinking I might write an article about Vermont, Elswyth, authors I respect. Meg leaves the brilliantly sunlit room to make a photocopy of the local map so I could drive by the Beebe house. She comes back with the Town Nurse Jennifer Fitzgerald, who spent more than two years as visiting nurse for Mrs. Beebe – and by a miracle now owns the very house celebrated in Srength of These Hills... Her first words to me, “I was just listening to ‘The Secret’ on tape in the car!”

There for an hour’s visit – until we found out we were both Hospice workers – and stayed three days. Charmed by the house, its occupants visible and invisible, now I am deep into researching a full-length biography. Anyone who knew her, enjoys her books and has a story to tell I would love to listen to you. Please click the link to my email, expecting more miracles, I am Garnette Arledge.