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Chautauqua Girls #2
The Chautauqua Girls at Home
Their lives had been transformed at Chautauqua, but old habits were waiting for them back home. . . . After an amazing month at Chautauqua, Ruth, Eureka, Flossy, and Marion enthusiastically return home to join the local church, serve God with their talents, and share the message of salvation with others. But as they encounter the distrust of their pastor, the apathy of friends, and the lure of past lifestyles, they discover they still have much to learn about following God in the real world.Although these four young women have little in common, they share the same desire to be genuine in their faith. Carrying each other's burdens and finding strength in their growing friendship, they become models of accountability for their community and testimonies of a faith that is alive.Heartwarming stories of faith and love by Grace Livingston Hill's aunt—Isabella Alden. Each book is similar in style and tone to Hill's and is set in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
301 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1873
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About the author
Pansy
338 books31 followersNote: In her lifetime, Isabella Macdonald Alden was usually published under the pseudonym Pansy, and occasionally under the name Mrs. G.R. Alden.
Aunt to Grace Livingston Hill
The sixth of seven children born to Isaac and Myra Spafford Macdonald, of Rochester, New York, Isabella Macdonald received her early education from her father, who home-schooled her, and gave her a nickname - "Pansy" - that she would use for many of her publications. As a girl, she kept a daily journal, critiqued by her father, and she published her first story - The Old Clock - in a village paper when she was ten years old.
Macdonald's education continued at the Oneida Seminary, the Seneca Collegiate Institute, and the Young Ladies Institute, all in New York. It was at the Oneida Seminary that she met her long-time friend (and eventual co-author), Theodosia Toll, who secretly submitted one of Macdonald's manuscripts in a competition, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the publication of her first book, Helen Lester, in 1865.
Macdonald also met her future husband, the Rev. Gustavus Rossenberg Alden, at the Oneida Seminary, and the two were married in 1866. Now Isabella Macdonald Alden, the newly-married minister's wife followed her husband as his postings took them around the country, dividing her time between writing, church duties, and raising her son Raymond (born 1873).
A prolific author, who wrote approximately one hundred novels from 1865 to 1929, and co-authored ten more, Alden was also actively involved in the world of children's and religious periodicals, publishing numerous short stories, editing the Sunday Juvenile Pansy from 1874-1894, producing Sunday School lessons for The Westminster Teacher for twenty years, and working on the editorial staff of various other magazines (Trained Motherhood, The Christian Endeavor).
Highly influenced by her Christian beliefs, much of Alden's work was explicitly moral and didactic, and often found its way into Sunday School libraries. It was also immensely popular, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with an estimated 100,000 copies of Alden's books sold, in 1900.
Information taken from:
readseries.com
isabellamacdonaldalden.com
Aunt to Grace Livingston Hill
The sixth of seven children born to Isaac and Myra Spafford Macdonald, of Rochester, New York, Isabella Macdonald received her early education from her father, who home-schooled her, and gave her a nickname - "Pansy" - that she would use for many of her publications. As a girl, she kept a daily journal, critiqued by her father, and she published her first story - The Old Clock - in a village paper when she was ten years old.
Macdonald's education continued at the Oneida Seminary, the Seneca Collegiate Institute, and the Young Ladies Institute, all in New York. It was at the Oneida Seminary that she met her long-time friend (and eventual co-author), Theodosia Toll, who secretly submitted one of Macdonald's manuscripts in a competition, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to the publication of her first book, Helen Lester, in 1865.
Macdonald also met her future husband, the Rev. Gustavus Rossenberg Alden, at the Oneida Seminary, and the two were married in 1866. Now Isabella Macdonald Alden, the newly-married minister's wife followed her husband as his postings took them around the country, dividing her time between writing, church duties, and raising her son Raymond (born 1873).
A prolific author, who wrote approximately one hundred novels from 1865 to 1929, and co-authored ten more, Alden was also actively involved in the world of children's and religious periodicals, publishing numerous short stories, editing the Sunday Juvenile Pansy from 1874-1894, producing Sunday School lessons for The Westminster Teacher for twenty years, and working on the editorial staff of various other magazines (Trained Motherhood, The Christian Endeavor).
Highly influenced by her Christian beliefs, much of Alden's work was explicitly moral and didactic, and often found its way into Sunday School libraries. It was also immensely popular, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with an estimated 100,000 copies of Alden's books sold, in 1900.
Information taken from:
readseries.com
isabellamacdonaldalden.com
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 12, 2024
2024 Reread
Just as encouraging and challenging if not more than before. Of all the girls, Ruth annoys me the most. But the reminder that what is a struggle and hardship for one person would be easy and almost a delight to another was so good. It's easy to look at someone else's life and assume they have things so easy when we don't know their struggles. The message of doing ALL things for the glory of God was so good.
Yes, I highly recommend this book. (But read Four Girls at Chautauqua first.)
Starting only about a week after the first book (Four Girls at Chautauqua) ends, this book picks up the story of the four girls: Marian, Ruth, Flossy and Eurie. The struggles each of them faced as they learned to walk with Christ encouraged me as each one was different. While Ruth may struggles with one thing, Flossy wouldn't find such a thing a burden at all. It was a good reminder that everyone is different and God knows what we all need to grow. Their Bible study together challenged me once again to view everything I do in the light of helping others and not being a stumbling block.
A book that I'll re-read again.
Just as encouraging and challenging if not more than before. Of all the girls, Ruth annoys me the most. But the reminder that what is a struggle and hardship for one person would be easy and almost a delight to another was so good. It's easy to look at someone else's life and assume they have things so easy when we don't know their struggles. The message of doing ALL things for the glory of God was so good.
Yes, I highly recommend this book. (But read Four Girls at Chautauqua first.)
Starting only about a week after the first book (Four Girls at Chautauqua) ends, this book picks up the story of the four girls: Marian, Ruth, Flossy and Eurie. The struggles each of them faced as they learned to walk with Christ encouraged me as each one was different. While Ruth may struggles with one thing, Flossy wouldn't find such a thing a burden at all. It was a good reminder that everyone is different and God knows what we all need to grow. Their Bible study together challenged me once again to view everything I do in the light of helping others and not being a stumbling block.
A book that I'll re-read again.
Read
July 3, 2017This is the first sequel to Alden's "Four Girls at Chautauqua" -- having found faith, how will the girls deal with their re-arrival at home?
More or less as you'd expect is the answer: each girl is presented with a few challenges which she eventually successfully surmounts. Work in their home church is key to this volume as is courtship and eventual marriage. There's less courtship than engagement and perhaps a flow chart of character ages might have been handy.
Alden's use of "work" struck me particularly in this volume -- I'm interested to see if she gets any more specific in the later books (assuming I can find them for free, that is!). It seems to me that she uses "work" in a way very similar to the way in which cultural nationalists often do. I'm most familiar with the nationalistic vocabulary of nineteenth century Irish nationalism and it seems to me that both Alden and "the Irish Nationalists" (writ large) use "work" in a similarly vague sense. While "work" is a vital idea, no-one seems very clear as to what "work" might be. Alden's heroines must "work" for Christ in much the same way as, for instance, George Moore seeks to "work" for Ireland but it isn't always entirely clear what "work" might be.
I have no idea how these books might strike a Christian believer -- I imagine for the right sort of person, Alden's work would still resonate quite strongly. As it is, she's an entertaining if didactic author, always willing to subordinate her story to a religious lesson. Despite that, she manages to create some compelling characters and, since essential change is a vital part of the story she's telling, the girls do not remain static which is both pleasant and rare in the genre.
More or less as you'd expect is the answer: each girl is presented with a few challenges which she eventually successfully surmounts. Work in their home church is key to this volume as is courtship and eventual marriage. There's less courtship than engagement and perhaps a flow chart of character ages might have been handy.
Alden's use of "work" struck me particularly in this volume -- I'm interested to see if she gets any more specific in the later books (assuming I can find them for free, that is!). It seems to me that she uses "work" in a way very similar to the way in which cultural nationalists often do. I'm most familiar with the nationalistic vocabulary of nineteenth century Irish nationalism and it seems to me that both Alden and "the Irish Nationalists" (writ large) use "work" in a similarly vague sense. While "work" is a vital idea, no-one seems very clear as to what "work" might be. Alden's heroines must "work" for Christ in much the same way as, for instance, George Moore seeks to "work" for Ireland but it isn't always entirely clear what "work" might be.
I have no idea how these books might strike a Christian believer -- I imagine for the right sort of person, Alden's work would still resonate quite strongly. As it is, she's an entertaining if didactic author, always willing to subordinate her story to a religious lesson. Despite that, she manages to create some compelling characters and, since essential change is a vital part of the story she's telling, the girls do not remain static which is both pleasant and rare in the genre.
April 12, 2016
I felt this book was less successful than the first, and less interesting. This author was pretty much contemporaneous with Louisa May Alcott - seven years younger, in fact, but hasn't worn nearly as well.
March 29, 2017
Great story.
October 27, 2018
In the first book of this Chautauqua series, the four girls were each changed forever by their two weeks in the woods at a Bible meeting. This sequel follows them home to see how their new faith works out in their old surroundings. As each girl experienced finding faith in different ways, so their struggles at home were also different from one another's. First published in 1863. I listened to this as a free download from LibriVox.org. The reader was excellent!
March 16, 2023
So refreshingly biblical.
I loved how the author takes us through the thought process of these young Christians. She takes us through themes of witnessing, card playing (today there could be other addictions), dancing and other themes, giving thorough explanations/reasons for why/how Christians should engage in these activities. The biblical reasoning is splendid. So relaxing and at the same time challenging to have a book that is so full of all the things mentioned in Phillipians 4:8.
I loved how the author takes us through the thought process of these young Christians. She takes us through themes of witnessing, card playing (today there could be other addictions), dancing and other themes, giving thorough explanations/reasons for why/how Christians should engage in these activities. The biblical reasoning is splendid. So relaxing and at the same time challenging to have a book that is so full of all the things mentioned in Phillipians 4:8.
September 2, 2023
How much has changed!
This is book two in a series that Isabella Alden wrote about four young women who attended Chautauqua. It shows the way they developed in their Christian lives as a result of their experiences.
I benefit so much by the spiritual insights which Isabella presents often in conversations between the characters.
As an observation, Chautauqua today is nothing like it was in Isabel alden's day.
This is book two in a series that Isabella Alden wrote about four young women who attended Chautauqua. It shows the way they developed in their Christian lives as a result of their experiences.
I benefit so much by the spiritual insights which Isabella presents often in conversations between the characters.
As an observation, Chautauqua today is nothing like it was in Isabel alden's day.
May 9, 2021
It was an easy read!
I liked it. It was just the right amount of sugar without being overly aggressive in the way most book if the time period was like
I liked it. It was just the right amount of sugar without being overly aggressive in the way most book if the time period was like
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews