Faith and Gasoline: Will Faith find a new home for her growing family?

Good morning beautiful homemakers!

Today I offer you an 8 page story written by Grace Livingston Hill's aunt Isabella Alden and mother Marcia Livingston.  Both sisters wrote several short stories together, and longer stories on their own.  Both had a profound impact on Grace and encouraged her in her writing. I found this story in the book: Grace Livingston Hill Collection No. 4. 

Despondent at the thought of having to leave her husband behind in the city during the hot summer months, Faith Vincent wants to try her hand at housekeeping in the outskirts of the city. Her husband doesn't see how she could possibly cook over a hot stove and take care of a crying baby at the same time, due to her delicate constitution. Will Faith find a home to rent within their meager budget? If so, how will she get their meals?  Or will she and the baby be sent to her husband's aunt and uncle on a distant farm? How does she know what is the right thing to do?

I hope you enjoy this short story while you attend to your own homemaking.  Or maybe it is time for you to rest and put your feet up while you listen.  Enjoy!

  

[The following is from her Wikipedia page, including all links.]

Isabella Macdonald Alden was well-known for her Pansy book series, and was popular in the Chautauqua movement, an adult summer education and social movement in New York that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted as saying that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America." What he actually said was: "it is a source of positive strength and refreshment of mind and body to come to meet a typical American gathering like this—a gathering that is typically American in that it is typical of America at its best." Several Chautauqua assemblies continue to gather to this day, including the original Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York. 

Isabella suffered from chronic migraines, but she refused to call herself an "invalid".^[2] Her physician limited her to three hours of literary work each day.^[3]

 

After the deaths of her husband and son in 1924, Alden moved to Palo Alto, California,^[4] to live with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren.^[2] 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.  

[A fascinating website devoted to her and works, especially her Pansy books, is www.isabellamacdonaldalden.com/. ]

Grace Livingston Hill described her aunt’s distinctive writing ability in the foreword of An Interrupted Night:

“With marvelous skill she searched hearts, especially of the easy-going Christian, whether minister or layman, young and old, and brought them awake and alive to their inconsistencies. She wove her stories around their common, everyday life, till all her characters became alive and real to those who read.”

 

[The following is from her Wikipedia page, including all links.]

Grace Livingston Hill (April 16, 1865 – February 23, 1947) was an early 20th-century novelist and wrote both under her real name and the pseudonym Marcia Macdonald. She wrote over 100 novels and numerous short stories. Her characters were most often young Christian women or become Christians within the confines of the story.

Grace Livingston Hill was born in Wellsville, New York to Marcia Macdonald Livingston and her husband, Presbyterian minister, Rev. Charles Montgomery Livingston. Both were writers, as was her aunt, Isabella Macdonald Alden, who wrote under the pseudonym "Pansy."

Hill's writing career began as a child in the 1870s, writing short stories for her aunt's weekly children's publication, The Pansy. Her first story printed in book form was The Esselstynes, which was published in 1877 as part of the "Mother's Boys and Girls Library" by D. Lothrop & Company.

A Chautauqua Idyl, her first book as a young adult, was written in 1887 to earn enough money for a family trip from her Florida home to the summer Chautauqua gathering at Chautauqua, New York. This illustrated allegory of a Chautauqua gathering held by the flowers, trees, and animals, was published in time to be offered for sale that summer and brought enough earnings to take the family there.

  

Hill's messages are simple in nature: good versus evil. As Hill believed the Bible was very clear about what was good and evil in life, she reflected that design in her own works. She wrote about a variety of different subjects, almost always with a romance worked into the message and often essential to the return to grace on the part of one or several characters.

If her clear-cut descriptions of evil in man and woman were Hill’s primary subjects in her novels, a secondary subject would always be God’s ability to restore. Hill aimed for a happy, or at least satisfactory, ending to any situation, often focusing on characters' new or renewed faith as impetus for resolution.  

Read more about Grace and her books at www.gracelivingstonhill.com 

  

 From www.gracelivingstonhill.com/marcia-macdonald-livingston 

Marcia Macdonald Livingston was Grace Livingston Hill's mother. She was also an author, writing as Mrs. C.M. Livingston. She published several children's books and even a short play to be used at Christmastime.

In addition to her own books, Marcia wrote regular columns for "The Pansy", a weekly children's magazine edited by her sister, Isabella Macdonald Alden (Pansy). She and her sister collaborated on five books and two other books were family efforts, where everyone in the two sisters' familes (along with a few close friends) contributed a chapter or more.

Marcia was born in 1832, the daughter of Isaac Macdonald and Myra Spafford of Johnstown, New York. It's interesting that Myra Spafford's name appears among the authors in The Pansy and The Kaleidoscope, but her name was used as a pseudonymn "tribute" by the sisters. Marcia's sister, Julia, is the Aunt Jewel of Grace's book, Cloudy Jewel and it's from this side of the family that Grace took the Spafford name for Marcia Schuyler, even though the story itself is from Livingston history.

Marcia Macdonald joined the Livingston family in 1855 when she married Rev. Charles Montgomery Livingston. The story of their wedding is lovingly retold in Isabella's autobiography, Memories of Yesterdays. She was just a girl when Marcia and Charles married, and she lived with them for a time when she was a student. It was Charles who introduced Isabella to her future husband, Rev. G.R. Alden

The Livingstons enjoyed a long, happy marriage and together they ministered to the congregations of many Presbyterian and Congregational churches over the years, as Rev. Livingston's health permitted. When her husband passed away in 1900, Marcia went to live with Grace in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania and she remained there until her own Home-going in 1924.

 

From www.gracelivingstonhill.com/ruth-glover-hill-munce 

Ruth Glover Hill was the daughter of Grace Livingston Hill and Rev. T.G.F. Hill. She married Gordon Munce and they lived with Grace for a number of years. 

She was an accomplished concert violinst and studied at Juliard and with Thaddeus Rich, Concert Master of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. She and her sister, Margaret, founded the Swarthmore School of Music. Ruth was an instructor in Advanced Violin, Instrumental Playing, Musical History, and The Orchestras

Ruth finished Mary Arden, the book that Grace was working on at the time of her death. She went on to write several novels in a similar style with the pen name Ruth Livingston Hill.

After Grace's death in 1947, Ruth and her children moved to Florida where she founded the Grace Livingston Memorial School (now known as Keswick Christian School). The school is thriving today. She was also a well-known Bible teacher in the St. Petersburg area.

Like her mother, Ruth served the Lord well into her later years, beginning work as a missionary in Africa at the age of 70! By the time she was called Home, she had lived 103 years in His service.

 From www.gracelivingstonhill.com/margaret-livingston-hill-walker

Margaret Livingston Hill was the daughter of Grace Livingston Hill and Rev. T.G.F. Hill. She was born in 1893, just after her parents began serving at Wakefield Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia.

Margaret became an accomplished musician and with her sister, Ruth, founded the Swarthmore School of Music. She studied piano with Ernest Hutcheson and Pipe-organ and Theory with Ralph Kinder, after whose teaching she earned the degree of Associate of the American Guild of Organists. Margaret was the Director of the School and taught Advanced Piano and Theory, as well as Teacher Training.

She was also a writer and published three children's books as Margaret Livingston Hill. She married Rev. Wendall Walker in 1924 and they lived with Grace for a time. They had two children, Allyn and Marcia. The Walkers later moved to Kentucky and founded the Warfield Bible Institute.