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One Stayed At Welcome
As in her previous novels, the days of the western settlers are made vivid by the Lovelaces' unusual sense of the drama of colonization. One Stayed At Welcome opens with the founding of Welcome by two young men, Larry and Dan, who have made a lasting friendship of the trek from the East. Their little town grows rapidly and within two years many new faces are to be found on the shores of Lake Welcome. Among the varied newcomers is an old school teacher and his daughter Lillie, whom Dan and Larry remember as a little girl playing on the decks of a Mississippi river steamer. Now she is a matured young woman, and before a winter has passed both boys are in love with her. Soon their hidden jealousy flames up in a youthful quarrel and Welcome rocks with the news that Dan and Larry are no longer sharing their joint claim. Their quarrel reaches its climax the night of a great prairie fire, and with it comes a new friendship through mutual self-sacrifice." (Summary courtesy of the publisher)
311 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1934
103 people want to read
About the author
Maud Hart Lovelace
46 books740 followersMaud Hart Lovelace was an American writer best known for the beloved Betsy-Tacy series, which has remained a cornerstone of American children’s literature for generations. Born and raised in Mankato, Minnesota, she began writing at an early age and showed literary promise while still in high school. She attended the University of Minnesota, where she worked for the Minnesota Daily, and sold her first short story while recuperating in California, marking the start of her professional career. Lovelace initially wrote historical novels for adults, including The Black Angels and the successful Early Candlelight, before turning to children’s fiction inspired by stories she told her daughter. Beginning in the late 1930s, she created the Betsy-Tacy books, drawing heavily on her own childhood and friendships. Set largely in the fictional town of Deep Valley, the series follows its heroine from early childhood into adulthood, with the books gradually increasing in complexity alongside their readers. Lovelace also wrote several related Deep Valley novels featuring the same community. Her work was praised for its warmth, authenticity, and vivid sense of place, securing her lasting influence in American literary culture.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 13, 2009
It's funny that I know Maud so well that I know when Delos is writing. It's also funny that the only time I give a flip about Minnesota history is when Maud writes it. Go figure.
June 10, 2022
“‘Good farmin’, good huntin’...It certainly does build up to a welcome sight…Welcome…There’s the name for you…Welcome to Welcome!’…I’m delighted to welcome you and your friend into the finest county, the finest territory, and the finest nation on earth…Seems like there never was such a place as Minnesota for most everythin’ a man enjoys.”
Larry and Dan are the cowboy prequel to Betsy and Tacy. “‘You can’t find better than Larry…He’s a whole team and wagon, and an extra horse. And Dan here…is the whole team and wagon and the extra horse and a right big dog under the wagon’…He grinned at Dan, and Dan laughed back. This, Larry realized, was the making of a partnership. A written contract could not have made it more binding.”
“It makes a man wonder just how much right he has to be here. But when you come down to it…every one of us has to nudge over and give the other fellow room. It doesn’t matter whether we live in Vermont or Kentucky or here. When any two men come together, they both have to give way…But what if the Indian doesn’t know how to nudge over in the white man’s way?”
“That, my friends…is what makes it so difficult to help the human race. There is an inherent perversity in us…One must begin with one’s self and work outwards. One must plough one’s own field, strive to make one’s own life ideal, not forgetting to reach out and touch one’s neighbors at every point.”
“It had been a high moment when…they gave Welcome its name. But their mood had been tempered by the strangeness of the new land…All the struggle lay ahead, and neither was able to say with certainty that he would prove equal to it. Now…They were no longer alien…the richness of the land…was in their blood and sinew. This was their home, they had claimed and encompassed it. And they were off to the center of their new world to present themselves as worthy residents.”
Maud and Delos Lovelace’s One Stayed at Welcome is The Gift of the Magi set in the Wild West: friendship makes the best weapon!
Larry and Dan are the cowboy prequel to Betsy and Tacy. “‘You can’t find better than Larry…He’s a whole team and wagon, and an extra horse. And Dan here…is the whole team and wagon and the extra horse and a right big dog under the wagon’…He grinned at Dan, and Dan laughed back. This, Larry realized, was the making of a partnership. A written contract could not have made it more binding.”
“It makes a man wonder just how much right he has to be here. But when you come down to it…every one of us has to nudge over and give the other fellow room. It doesn’t matter whether we live in Vermont or Kentucky or here. When any two men come together, they both have to give way…But what if the Indian doesn’t know how to nudge over in the white man’s way?”
“That, my friends…is what makes it so difficult to help the human race. There is an inherent perversity in us…One must begin with one’s self and work outwards. One must plough one’s own field, strive to make one’s own life ideal, not forgetting to reach out and touch one’s neighbors at every point.”
“It had been a high moment when…they gave Welcome its name. But their mood had been tempered by the strangeness of the new land…All the struggle lay ahead, and neither was able to say with certainty that he would prove equal to it. Now…They were no longer alien…the richness of the land…was in their blood and sinew. This was their home, they had claimed and encompassed it. And they were off to the center of their new world to present themselves as worthy residents.”
Maud and Delos Lovelace’s One Stayed at Welcome is The Gift of the Magi set in the Wild West: friendship makes the best weapon!
June 11, 2017
You might have to be a Minnesota history buff to enjoy this book as much as I did. Maud and Delos Lovelace spin a heartwarming tale of friendship on the frontier that includes cameo appearances by a few well-known figures from Minnesota's territorial period. The story touches on the development of Minneapolis, St. Anthony and St. Paul, the real estate speculation that led to the financial crash of 1857, and the displacement of Dakota people from their homeland, hinting at the tensions that would cause an uprising ten years after the end of this story.
The Lovelaces avoid many of the usual tropes of pioneer stories: there are no fatal blizzards or grasshopper plagues; no one dies of starvation or cholera; and conflicts with the native population are settled through discussion, not violence. While farming is the main industry in the fictional settlement of Welcome, the characters are not all rugged homesteaders. Hunters, merchants, craftsmen and scholars are all given prominent roles in the community.
For its time, One Stayed at Welcome is fairly broad-minded in its depiction of immigrants and American Indians, but a modern reader can't help cringing at some of the language. Dakota men and women are "braves" and "squaws"; as a group they are given to begging and theft. The German settlers are uniformly industrious, while a French settler is given to excess displays of emotion and his mixed-blood family is so large no one can remember the children's names. The stereotyping ages the book. One wishes, especially, that the authors would have given more of a voice to the Dakota characters, who are cast here as a doomed race.
Above all, though, this is a story about friendship and community. The friendship between Dan and Larry, the young men at the center of the story, is warm and authentic, and it is refreshing to see men share such a deep expression of brotherly love. They are the heart of a community whose members respect and help one another, resolve their differences peacefully, and find joy in rural life. Yes, it's idyllic, but that's this book's charm.
The Lovelaces avoid many of the usual tropes of pioneer stories: there are no fatal blizzards or grasshopper plagues; no one dies of starvation or cholera; and conflicts with the native population are settled through discussion, not violence. While farming is the main industry in the fictional settlement of Welcome, the characters are not all rugged homesteaders. Hunters, merchants, craftsmen and scholars are all given prominent roles in the community.
For its time, One Stayed at Welcome is fairly broad-minded in its depiction of immigrants and American Indians, but a modern reader can't help cringing at some of the language. Dakota men and women are "braves" and "squaws"; as a group they are given to begging and theft. The German settlers are uniformly industrious, while a French settler is given to excess displays of emotion and his mixed-blood family is so large no one can remember the children's names. The stereotyping ages the book. One wishes, especially, that the authors would have given more of a voice to the Dakota characters, who are cast here as a doomed race.
Above all, though, this is a story about friendship and community. The friendship between Dan and Larry, the young men at the center of the story, is warm and authentic, and it is refreshing to see men share such a deep expression of brotherly love. They are the heart of a community whose members respect and help one another, resolve their differences peacefully, and find joy in rural life. Yes, it's idyllic, but that's this book's charm.
November 17, 2017
Historical fiction based on Eden Prairie, MN!
July 2, 2019
The story itself is slow but loved the descriptions and telling of young Minnesota.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews