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Kindred Spirits: Gene Stratton-Porter and Constance Lindsay Skinner

2/28/2016

 
By Terri Gorney

Gene Stratton-Porter met and became friends with fellow writers. She found a true 
kindred spirit in writer and poet Constance Lindsay Skinner. Constance was a British 
Columbia native. Constance, like Gene, loved the outdoors and nature and both were born 
in a rural setting. Constance was very much her own person, and loved to wear jewelry 
and to dress in bright colors. 

Constance, like Gene, wrote poetry, novels, and non-fiction books. Later she evolved into 
a historian on pioneer life and wrote articles for newspapers. One of her novels “Good 
Morning, Rosamond” was adapted to a comedy that was performed at the Shubert 
Theatre in New York City. For a short time, she lived in California and in her later years 
in New York City where she became a U.S. citizen in 1935.

After reading Constance’s poetry in “Poetry” magazine, Gene wrote to Constance. She 
wrote, “in my estimation all of this work is wonderful.” She was especially fond of the 
poem “The Song of the Search,” and stated “in my estimation the finest piece of work of 
poetical quality that I ever have seen from the pen of any woman living or dead and at the 
present minute I recall nothing from the pen of any man which makes so strong appeal to 
me.  This may be because from my life and work in the woods, I am peculiarly and 
particularly receptive of such work as yours, and it may be, and I think it is, because it is 
the finest thing of the mind I ever have read.” Gene asked for permission to use it in her 
next book. She wanted to help Constance’s career and “put the poem before millions.”  

In her book “Michael O’Halloran” Gene quote “The Song of  the Search.” Her character, 
Douglas Bruce, loved the poem and recited it. Constance’s maternal side, the Lindsays, 
have a long and famous Scottish pedigree which also may be why Gene gave the Douglas 
Bruce, one of the main characters, a Scottish surname. 

Constance, like Gene, was an early environmentalist. She wrote many poems about 
nature and Native Americans. She wrote a poem called “The Song of Cradle-Making” 
about a Native American woman weaving a baby cradle for her child that is coming. She 
won a literary prize for it in 1913 and she dedicated the poem to Gene.                            

Gene commissioned Carl Arthur Faille, who painted under C.A. Faille, to bring 
Constance’s poem “Song of Cradle-Making” to “life.” In March 1920, he completed the 
painting. Carl said that Gene called him her “painter man.” He credits her with launching 
his career. He specialized in large nature landscapes. The painting hung in her Rome City 
home and later in one of her homes in California. It was sold after her death.

When Gene’s secretary, Lorene Miller, married Frank Wallace at Wildflower Woods, 
Constance wrote a special “Wedding Song” for the occasion. Gene read the poem at the 
wedding. The Fort Wayne “Journal-Gazette” wrote that “no setting could have been more 
appropriate for this exquisite song beginning.” 

The poem began:  “The pine trees shadow blessings.
                              The cedars drop odours.
                              Where love is the depth of the waters
                              And the light of the prairie’s smile.”

Constance and Gene shared a friendship until Gene’s accidental death at the age of 61 in 
Los Angeles in 1924. Constance died after a brief illness in New York City in 1939 at the 
age of 61. We will never know what more these two creative and engaging women would 
have accomplished had they been granted longer lives.

Writer’s Note: A special thank you to historian, and Constance’s biographer, Jean 
Barman for your generousity and support of my research. Thank you to Dave Reichlinger 
for editing suggestions.

Gene Stratton-Porter and the Great War

2/21/2016

 
By Terri Gorney 

One hundred years ago, the Great War began in Europe. Gene Stratton-Porter was a supporter of the war effort when America entered WWI. She purchased a $5000 Liberty bond from the Allen County Chapter of the Liberty Loan Club. Dr. Miles Porter, her brother-in-law, was chairman of the first aid committee for the Red Cross Chapter in Fort Wayne.

Under Indiana native Ernest Bicknell, the National Red Cross developed three committees: a National Relief Board, an International Relief Board, and a War Relief Board. According to the “Fort Wayne Sentinel” Gene was on one of the national committees. In 1935, Ernest wrote down his experiences in a book called “Pioneering With The Red Cross.” Before the war, the Red Cross had 17,000 members by the end of the war, there were 20 million members.

She watched while the men in her life were affected by the war. Her son-in-law, G. Blaine Monroe served as a dentist. Her nephew Donald Wilson served in the army aviation. Nephew Dr. Miles Porter Jr was according to Gene “a fine surgeon, who is to have charge of a base hospital near Paris.” He spent eighteen months in service. Another nephew, Dr. Charles Porter Beall, served as a doctor in France as did Dr. Corwin Price, a Geneva friend who would buy the Limberlost cabin in 1920.

Joyce Kilmer who wrote the “Tree” poem had corresponded with Gene. He was killed by a sniper in the war. In 1915, Kenyon Nicholson who became a playwright and screenwriter won Gene Stratton-Porter’s prize in literature while he was attending Wabash College in Crawfordsville. He served in France during the war. Gene’s own driver, William “Bill” Thompson, enlisted. 

During the war years, Gene and her friends were knitting wool socks so that they could be sent to the troops overseas. Gene encouraged the average citizen to do what they could for the war effort whether it meant knitting socks or donating time, money or books.

There were book drives across the country to send books to American service men in Europe. There was a 1918 report from Kingston, New York newspaper about a copy of “Freckles” that was donated to the book drive. In it was the following inscription, “My mother gave me this book to send to those who read it keep courage like Freckles did. I have two cousins and one uncle at the front some place. I am only 10 years and you don’t know how I wish I was old enough to help you catch the Kaiser.”  James G---Port Angeles, Washington.

In 1915, Queen Mary of Great Britain wrote to Gene to ask her permission to use her writings in a book that would be a collection of different popular writers of the day. The book was known as the “Queen’s Book” and was sold to benefit wounded soldiers and sailors (England was already in the war by this time). Unfortunately for Gene, in the end, it was decided to use short stories by English writers only.

Gene penned a poem called “Peter’s Flowers” that was hauntingly beautiful. It was first published on pages 3 and 4 of the April 1919 “Red Cross” magazine. It was illustrated by Thomas Fogarty. The story is about the World War I tradition that the first flower to spring from the soil of a battlefield is the red poppy. The poppy is a living sign that they will not be forgotten. Gene could have been inspired by the poem “In Flanders Fields” by Lt. Col. John McCrae. 

At the time Gene’s poem was published, John Sanburn Phillips was the editor of the “Red Cross” magazine. With the war over, Gene sent him a cheery Christmas greetings by writing, “I think “Peter” would want me to wish you all the joys of peace for the coming Christmas and all the blessings of prosperity for the New Year.” 

Gene was sensitive to the soldiers and veterans. Her book, “The Keeper of the Bees” was about an injured veteran of the war named Jamie MacFarlane who left a military hospital without proper discharge. She had it completed at the time of her death in December 1924. In a letter to her publisher, Nelson Doubleday, she wrote about a “Harvester type” character that she was developing. It is possible that she was referring to this book.

In 1921, the “Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle” carried an article about President Harding  appointing a woman as a delegate to a disarmament conference. In the article, Gene insisted that one woman is not enough to be appointed by President Harding as delegate to the disarmament conference. She wanted an equal number of men and women. She wrote, “After twenty years of experience in business with men, I have lost my awe of a man as an infallible business proposition. I have yet to find the time or the place in which a big-hearted, well-educated, commonsense woman could not be of the very greatest assistance in any business proposition of any nature that any man or body or body of men might attempt.”

Limberlost Influences Artist

2/14/2016

 
Picture
By Terri Gorney

Gene Stratton-Porter made the Limberlost Swamp famous in her novels. Gene’s writings 
influenced several generations of people from all walks of life in a number of countries. Because Gene paints Limberlost as a magical place, some even today believe that it was a place born of her imagination. Not so, the Limberlost Swamp was once 13,000 acres in Southern Adams County and Northern Jay County. Today, 1800 acres have been returned to wetlands.

Clarise Cliff, of Tunstall, England was ten years old when “A Girl of the Limberlost” was first 
published in 1909. She was inspired by Limberlost. Clarise would grow up and become one of 
the most influential and renowned ceramic artists of the 20th century. A ceramic pattern created in 1932 by Clarise would be called Limberlost. 

Clarise had a similar background as Gene. She came from a large family that lived in a small 
village of Tunstall. She would have a productive career and marry a successful man who was a 
number of years older than herself. 

The modern Jazz Age and the Art Deco style influenced her designs, but her Bizarre patterns and shapes were all from her own creativity. She called it Bizarre as she said, “because it is intended to surprise people.” In 1930 she stated, “Women today want continual change, they will have a color and plenty of it. Color seems to radiate happiness and the spirit of modern life and movement, and I cannot put too much of it into my designs to please women.” 

The 1930s was a busy and creative time for Clarise. She loved nature and taking long walks in 
the woods. This was reflected in her art. Her landscape designs became some of her best known works of art and are very collectible today. In 1932 the pattern “Limberlost” was one of these landscape designs. It was a tree with tan foliage and white flowers, with a green plain 
background. 

Clarice’s career as a ceramic designer was just beginning when Gene died in a car accident in 
California. Her mentor, Colley Shorter, was the owner of the pottery in which she worked. For 
over twenty years, she devoted herself to her career. In 1941, Colley and Clarise married. Today, there are Clarice Cliff Clubs in a number of countries and her pieces are considered works of art. A number of her pieces are in museums. In her lifetime, she created over 2000 patterns.

If you would like to learn more about Clarice Cliff, go to: www.ClariceCliff.com There are 
several good books about her life and her art. I enjoyed reading “Clarice Cliff: The Art of the 
Bizarre” by Leonard Griffin.

Emma Lindsay-Squier Meets Gene Stratton-Porter

2/8/2016

 
By Terri Gorney

“I was to meet Gene Stratton-Porter and I was scared to death,” wrote young nature 
writer Emma Lindsay-Squier in 1922. Both women were native Hoosiers and living in 
California. According to Emma, “A New York editor had asked her to give me some 
advice concerning nature stories.” At the time of this meeting, Emma was a journalist for 
the Los Angeles Times and wrote a society coumn under her own byline. 

Emma was born to Russell and Ada Squier in Marion Indiana in 1892. When she was a 
young woman, she read Gene’s books about the Limberlost and to Emma, Gene was “a 
wielder of high magic, a maker of big medicine.” Emma loved nature and began writing 
short stories on the subject. Before she was 13, she was writing a weekly newsletter in 
Terre Haute. Eventually the family moved to Salem Oregon, then Glendale California. 

Gene thought it was splendid that she was writing about nature “because the [WWI] 
brought people closer to nature than ever before.” Gene told her tales of the Limberlost 
that Emma had not read. It was a place she loved to hunt flowers, mosses and birds. She 
was happy with the “companionship of the out-of-doors.”

At this meeting, Gene gave Emma a copy of her latest book, “The Fire Bird,” and 
autographed it: “For Emma Lindsay Squier from Gene Stratton-Porter. A high place in 
the mountains. Great magic. Many blue shells.”

In 1922, Gene wrote an eleven page introduction for Emma’s first book “Wild Heart.” 
Emma’s book came out to great reviews. “To anyone who knows the field and woods the 
book carries the conviction of truth.” Nineteen years after the Gene’s first book, “Song of 
the Cardinal,” came out  Gene was a well respected author and naturalist. She was at a 
place in her life where young authors were asking her for advice and wisdom. Gene’s 
advice was to be humble and sincere in her writing. Gene told Emma, as she did her 
publisher, Nelson Doubleday, she felt that her best writings were still to come.  

At the close of the interview, Gene told Emma that the Limberlost “belongs to me – and – 
I belong to it.” She would be forever linked to the Limberlost with her books. It was a 
place that she made famous.

Emma would have a second book published that year called “On Autumn Trails.” She 
would write a number of short stories and books. One of her short stories, “Glorious 
Buccaneer,” was produced as a Hollywood film. 

She married John Bransby, a movie producer, who also did the photography for a couple 
of her books. In the 1930s, the couple moved from California to New York City. Emma 
she died at Saranac Lake of tuberculosis at the age of 48. John lived until 1998 and died 
at the age of 97.

Writer’s Note: Emma Lindsay Squier wrote about her meeting with Gene Stratton-Porter 
for the Los Angeles Times.

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