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Gene Stratton-Porter, a Woman of Many Talents

3/30/2015

 
By Terri Gorney 

Most people in northern Indiana know Gene Stratton-Porter as a novelist; her most 
famous books being “The Girl of the Limberlost” and “Freckles.” Few knew that among 
her talents she was an early naturalist, nature photographer, artist, and movie director. 

Gene wrote both fiction and non fiction books and magazine articles. She illustrated her 
writings with her own drawings or used her own photography. She even developed her 
own film. Her darkroom was the family bathroom. She was not content to use pictures of 
mounted birds and animals in her books which was the common practice at the time. She 
would go into the Limberlost wearing rubber boots, taking her large camera and often a 
gun with her for protection against the Massassauga rattlers that infested the swamp. It 
is at the Limberlost Swamp near her home in Geneva that she began her serious nature 
studies. 

Her first ten books were written while living in Geneva near the Limberlost swamp which 
was her inspiration for both her fiction and non fiction writings. Her first book “Song of 
the Cardinal” was published in 1903. In an early book review, she is quoted as saying 
“The Limberlost......is a great natural paradise as there is anywhere in the central states.”

Her writings of the Limberlost swamp have inspired Ken Brunswick to restore some of 
the 13,000 acres of the old swamp. Since the 1990s, Ken has worked hard to return over 
1500 acres of Gene’s beloved swamp back to wetlands.

Gene tried to put nature into her fiction writings. She preferred to write non fiction 
but the books of fiction were more popular. “Moths of the Limberlost,” “Friends in 
Feathers,” and “What I have Done With Birds,” were three of her best known non 
fiction books. William Lyon Phelps, an educator and critic, said of Gene about 1913, 
“she is primarily a naturalist, one of the foremost in America and has published a 
number of books on the flora and fauna illustrated with photos of her own taking.” She 
spent years collecting material for these books. Her book on moths greatly added to the 
knowledge of these beautiful creatures of the night.

She was accepted by her peers in the birding community. Gene was the main speaker at 
the 1908 Indiana Audubon state meeting that was held in Fort Wayne. Her two lectures 
were on “The Experiences of a Bird Woman” and “The Camera vs the Brush in Bird 
Reproduction.”

With some of the proceeds from “The Girl of the Limberlost” she bought 115 shares of 
stock in the Bank of Geneva for both her husband and herself. This secured his position 
as head cashier and placed both of them on the board of directors. This was in 1912 and 
still eight years before women had the right to vote. By this time, she was financially 
independent and when she chose to build her home “Wildflower Woods” on Sylvan Lake 
it was with money she earned as a writer. 

By the 1920s, Gene was trying her hand turning her books into movies. She formed Gene 
Stratton-Porter Productions and hired James Leo Meehan as her director. He married 
her daughter Jeanette making it a family business. She was just getting into this business 
and building a home in California when she was fatally injured in a car accident on 6 
December 1924.

Gene’s homes in Geneva and Rome City are now both state historic sites and open to the 
public.    

 

Few authors have had as many of their works made into films as did Mrs. Porter

3/23/2015

 
By Curt Burnette

Certainly one measure of the popularity of an author is the number of books they sell. 
Another measure of their popularity might be how many movies have been made based on 
that author’s works. Gene Stratton-Porter rates quite highly in both of these measures. Not 
many people know that Mrs. Porter was a best-selling author with many of her books—and 
even fewer know that more of her books were made into movies than almost any other female 
author—and many male authors also.

 The two best-selling authors of fiction in history, William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, 
have had numerous movies made from their many works, both on television and in movie 
theaters. Shakespeare’s works have produced over 400 movies and TV movies, and Agatha 
Christie (the great British mystery writer) has had at least 35 movies and 60 TV movies made 
from her novels and stories. Two other female writers whose numerous stories were translated to film many times are the current American author Danielle Steel, and the Swedish author of the last century Astrid Lingren (creator of Pippi Longstocking). Danielle Steel has written 120 books that have resulted in 25 movies and Astrid Lingren wrote 100 books that resulted in 52 movies (filmed in Sweden and Russia mostly).

 Not every author who sells a lot of books have their works made into numerous movies--
but often it is the most prolific writers whose works produce the most movies. After all, there 
are more to choose from. Gene Stratton-Porter falls into the more unusual situation where the 
author writes relatively few books, yet most are made into movies. Harper Lee wrote only one 
book (To Kill a Mockingbird), but it was made into a famous movie. A more modern example 
would be J. K. Rowling, whose 7 Harry Potter books were all made into movies. Gene wrote 
only 12 novels, yet 8 of these were made into 24 movies. Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost
each were filmed 5 times, The Keeper of the Bees was filmed 4 times, Michael O’Halloran and 
Laddie were filmed 3 times each, The Harvester was filmed twice, and Her Father’s Daughter 
and The Magic Garden were each filmed once. 

 Two of the films listed above were made by Gene herself. She was one of the very first 
women to start a movie production company. Gene Stratton-Porter Productions released her 
filmed version of Michael O’Halloran and A Girl of the Limberlost before her death, during the 
silent movie era. But even discounting the two she made herself, it’s obvious that Mrs. Porter’s 
small number of novels influenced movie-making in a way that few other authors have been 
able to do.

Our Native Sparrows

3/16/2015

 
By Terri Gorney 

When most of us think of sparrows, we think of the English or house sparrow which 
is commonly found at our bird feeders in urban and rural areas. At Limberlost, we are 
fortunate to have a number of native sparrows who make their home at least part of the 
year at Limberlost. Those include the American tree, chipping, song, savannah, field, 
white-throated, white-crowned, and fox sparrows.

The song sparrow is one of the most common sparrows and can be found at the 
Limberlost throughout the year. They were first described by Alexander Wilson in 1810. 
Gene Stratton-Porter wrote that she enjoyed the song sparrow all year. She believed 
that this beautiful bird was the “master singer of our winter woods.” They like to nest in 
brushy habitats, usually around water. A perfect place to see them is at Rainbow Bottom 
along the Wabash River. Ken Brunswick made sure a brush pile was left there as habitat 
for the birds. These sparrows have nested here and also use it for cover as when a raptor 
is in the area.

When most of the earth sleeps in winter, the meadow at the Loblolly Marsh still provides 
nutriants for the song sparrows and American tree sparrows or they may be found 
flocking to yard bird feeders when the snow covers much of the ground. Last January, at 
a home on Rainbow Lake, there were twenty or so American tree sparrows along with 
a couple song sparrows who regularly came to a ground feeder. Both species are seed 
eating birds and enjoy the seeds of the thistle, goldenrod and coneflower. Last winter 
both species were here in good numbers. 

The small and slender chipping sparrow is a bird of summer in this area. They can 
commonly be heard “chipping” early in the morning. Many will nest and raise their 
young in northeastern Indiana. In the fall they will migrate south and return in the spring. 
The chipping sparrows close looking counter part, the American Tree sparrow, is a little 
larger has a dark spot on the breast and will spend the winter at Limberlost but will nest 
and raise their young further north. 

Field sparrows have seen their numbers decline in past years but their unmistakable 
vocalization of clear whistled notes and a trill could be heard at several places at the 
Loblolly Marsh and Limberlost Wetlands this past summer. This is one bird that is easier 
to hear than to see. Habitat restoration is helping this species make a come back in the 
area.

One species of sparrow that are not as common and tend to be a little shyer is the 
savannah sparrow. Jane Brooks Hine, a bird woman from DeKalb County, wrote in 1911 
that “this little sparrow is one of her most intimate friends.” Jane wrote that he would 
be outside her kitchen window and that like the song sparrow, used the brush heap for 
shelter all year long. 

Fox sparrows are few in numbers but one or two can be seen in the winter months at the 
Loblolly Marsh. Jane Hine wrote that they were in greater numbers in the late nineteenth 
century. 

White-throated and white-crowned sparrows are in the area in the early spring, fall and 
winter months. Both species nest further north, mostly in Canada. The Loblolly Marsh 
around Woody’s Retreat is a good place to watch for these birds. The white-throated 
sparrow is a species that likes the woods or is found at the edge of wooded areas. The 
white-crowned sparrow is commonly seen in shrubs or at the edge of a woods. 

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology website is a good place to research these birds further or 
listen to their calls www.allaboutbirds.org

Wherein is revealed the two types of birds for which the Bird Woman had no love

3/9/2015

 
By Curt Burnette

Gene Stratton-Porter was known as “The Bird Woman”. It was a nickname she acquired 
as a child when her mother called her “the little Bird Woman”, and it stuck with her for the 
rest of her life. A feature article in a 1904 Muncie newspaper was titled “The Bird Woman of 
the Limberlost”. Gene capitalized on the name by writing herself into her two most popular 
novels, Freckles and A Girl of the Limberlost, as the character of the Bird Woman who befriends Freckles and Elnora. Gene’s love of nature was broad, but of all the living things which are a part of nature her greatest love was for birds.

 It might be thought that this love encompassed every type of bird—but that would not be 
entirely true. There were, in fact, two types which she definitely did not love, and actually 
wished for their extinction. In her own words: “If I have any influence whatever, I shall most 
earnestly use it in advocating the complete extermination of cowbirds and English sparrows”. 
What was it about these two species that could bring about such vitriol and hate from a 
passionate bird-lover?

 The English sparrow, also known as house sparrow, is a species from Europe and Asia 
that was introduced to the United States in New York in 1852. They spread rapidly across 
this country and by 1886, the year Gene married Charles Porter, they had already invaded 
the entire Midwest and were making their way across the Great Plains. The Bird Woman 
considered English sparrows to be a threat to her beloved native Limberlost species as they 
would attack other birds, destroy their nests, break their eggs, and kill their young. She 
considered them to have “disgusting habits” and called them “...little villains...[which]...were 
always hanging around ready for any mischief they might do.”

 Cowbirds, specifically the brown-headed cowbird in Indiana, are nest parasites which the 
Bird Woman found to be intolerable, even though they are native, not introduced like the 
English sparrow. Cowbirds do not build their own nests in which to lay their eggs, they lay in 
the nests of other birds and let a different species rear their young. The Bird Woman witnessed cowbirds destroying host bird eggs when they laid their own, and considered them to be lazy slackers since they did not raise their own young. Modern science has documented retaliatory behavior from cowbirds, which watch the nests they laid their eggs in, and if they see that their own eggs have been thrown out, will ransack or destroy the nest of the offenders. This amazing vengeance has been labeled “mafia behavior”! Although the Bird Woman apparently did not know about this nasty side of her despised cowbirds, it did not matter. She still thought of them as “such unspeakable pests they are worthy of mention only to advise their extinction.”

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