Isabella Macdonald Alden

Isabella Macdonald Alden (nickname and pen name, Pansy; November 3, 1841 – August 5, 1930) was an American author. Her best known works were: Four Girls at Chautauqua, Chautauqua Girls at Home, Tip Lewis and his Lamp, Three People, Links in Rebecca's Life, Julia Ried, Ruth Erskine's Crosses, The King's Daughter, The Browning Boys, From Different Standpoints, Mrs. Harry Harper's Awakening, The Measure, and Spun from Fact.

Alden also wrote the primary lesson department of the Westminster Teacher, edited the Presbyterian Primary Quarterly and the children's magazine Pansy, and wrote a serial story for the Herald and Presbyter of Cincinnati every winter. Alden was interested in Sunday school primary teaching, and had charge of more than a hundred children every Sunday for many years. She was interested in temperance also, and was involved in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Four of her books, Three People, The King's Daughter, One Commonplace Day, and Little Fishers and their Nets, were distinctively temperance books, while the principle of total abstinence was maintained in all her writings.

Early life and education Isabella Macdonald was born in Rochester, New York to well-educated parents, Isaac and Myra Spafford Macdonald. Her father supported the temperance and abolitionist movements, believing slavery to be a sin. Her mother was devoted to everything that was "pure and of good report."

The sixth of seven children, Alden was initially home-schooled by her father, who also gave her the nickname Pansy, because of an incident that occurred in her childhood. Her mother had taken great pride in a bed of pansy blossoms. Macdonald, seeing the flowers, picked them and threw them into her mother's lap exclaiming, "I pulled every one for you." She could not understand her mother's look of distress. The father, seeing the disappointed look on the little girl's face, picked her up, seated her on his shoulder and said, "Never mind, baby, you shall always be my little pansy-blossom."

Alden developed her writing skills early: as a child, she kept a daily journal which her father critiqued. The letters she wrote to absent family members formed a habit of expressing her thoughts which proved to be useful in her career. When she was ten years old, she wrote a story titled Our Old Clock. The father said the story must be printed in order to preserve it and that she might sign her pet name "Pansy" to it. The child was delighted to see something of her own writing in print.

She was educated at Seneca Collegiate Institute, Ovid, New York and Young Ladies' Institute, Auburn, New York.

Marriage She met Reverend Gustavus Rossenberg Alden at Oneida Seminary in New York. His work took the couple to various parts of the country, including Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington D.C.

Alden's books were enormously popular during the late 19th century. In 1900, sales were estimated at 100,000 copies annually.

Personal life Alden suffered from chronic headaches, which never left her and was often very severe, but she refused to call herself an "invalid". Her physician limited her to three hours of literary work each day.

After the deaths of her husband and son in 1924, Alden moved to Palo Alto, California, to live with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. She continued writing until shortly before her death on August 5, 1930. her unfinished autobiography, Memories of Yesterday, was completed and edited by her niece, Grace Livingston Hill.

In the 1990s, edited and abridged editions of some Alden's works appeared in two series issued by Christian publishers, The Pansy Collection, published by Creation Books, and the Grace Livingston Hill Library, published by Living Books.

Selected works

Ester Ried series Ester Ried: Asleep and Awake (1870) Julia Ried: Listening and Led (1872) The King's Daughter (1873) Wise and Otherwise (1873) Ester Ried Yet Speaking (1883) Ester Ried's Namesake (1906)

Chautauqua Girls series Four Girls at Chautauqua (1876) The Chautauqua Girls at Home (1877) Ruth Erskine's Crosses (1879) Judge Burnham's Daughters (1888) Workers Together, or, An Endless Chain (1887) Ruth Erskine's Son (1907) Four Mothers at Chautauqua (1913)

Paired books Chrissy's Endeavor (1889), followed by Her Associate Members (1891) Household Puzzles (1875), followed by The Randolphs (1876) Aunt Hannah and Martha and John (1890), followed by John Remington, Martyr (1892)

Others Three People (1871) From Different Standpoints (1878) Links in Rebecca's Life (1878) The Hall in the Grove (1882) Eighty-Seven (1887) Pansy's Sunday Book: For afternoon readers, gems of literature and art, with numerous illustrations (Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., 1896), illustrated M. L. Kirk, Childe Hassam, L. J. Bridgman, Kemble, E. Pollak Divers Women Interrupted, also published as Out in the World Little Fishers and Their Nets Mag & Margaret The Man of the House Reuben's Hindrances Spun from Fact Tip Lewis and His Lamp Memories of Yesterday