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Meeting Tacy

Betsy Ray meets the little girl who will become her lifelong best friend, Tacy Kelly, when Tacy’s family moves across the street. On the chilly March day that they move in, Tacy wanders outside to take in her new surroundings, and Betsy excitedly dons her cold weather clothing to greet her. But Tacy is shy, and sprints back into her house when Betsy calls out to her, asking her name. Betsy is stung and retreats home.

Tacy then peeks her head out of the front door to quickly shout “Tacy!” Betsy doesn’t realize that that Tacy actually is calling out her own name; it is one that Betsy has never heard, so she remains confused and hurt. But the misunderstanding turns out to be the only quarrel that Betsy and Tacy would ever have. “And of course it did not count,” Lovelace explains. “For they weren’t friends yet” (p. 7, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993).

That is remedied in short order. Betsy and Tacy become friends at her fifth birthday party in April. At the party, the chidren play games like pin the tail on the donkey, march around the house to the sounds of Betsy’s mom playing the piano, and Betsy opens her presents, the most special (and iconic) of which is the small glass pitcher with a gold plated rim from Tacy.

Today, this children’s birthday party might happen at a venue, like a jungle gym or an arcade. A game of musical chairs might be played or a dance party might commence, set to the sounds of recorded music, probably from a playlist stored and played on a digital device. Birthday presents would likely be something fun to play with or to wear.

But Betsy quickly realizes that the real gift of the day is her brand new friend. She and Tacy remain side by side throughout the party, hands often clasped, and Lovelace informs the reader that this would be the case ever after. For Betsy had received the nicest kind of present: “the present of a friend” (p. 14, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). And that is the same now, exactly as it was then.

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For more on birthday parties in the early 1900s (including a charming children’s photo), see: https://www.rheaheraldnews.com/lifestyles/article_743b172c-c1ac-11e3-b54b-001a4bcf887a.html

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Picnicking on the Hill

Eating outdoors is a favorite experience for Betsy and her friends throughout the series. The tradition begins in Betsy-Tacy when Betsy and Tacy bring their supper plates to their special bench on the hill, away from their families. They share what is on each of their plates, with Mrs. Kelly’s cake especially prized, so Tacy always divides her piece — carefully and evenly — with Betsy. Then they eat, watch the sun set, and tell stories, mostly Betsy’s, until it grows dark and cold and they are called home.

In time, Betsy and Tacy obtain permission to climb and explore the Big Hill, going futher and further each time. They chart their path tentatively at first, more confidently later. They look down upon the town’s rooftops. They discover “places which belonged to them” (p. 21, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). They fantastize about living on the hill someday. Eating outdoors and climbing the hill represent the girls’s cherished, burgeoning, independence.

Picnics remain popular in the digital age. The third week of June is National Picnic Week in the United States. Luxury picnics, in which fancy feasts are catered, take the trend to another level. But it is certainly not common for five-year-old children to eat meals and explore the outdoors separate from their families. In general, children are not allowed to be as independent as they were in past decades, due to safety fears. Betsy and Tacy were likely within view of their parents’ eyes when they picnicked on their bench, especially in the beginning, but in time they began to drift away from supervision when playing on the hill.

When Betsy and Tacy grew older, they would climb a bigger hill, and pack picnic baskets to overflowing, to enjoy with their friends, “the Crowd.” But there is a stark and simple warmth in the image of these small girls carrying standard-sized supper plates and glasses of milk to their own hillside bench, sharing food, laughter, stories, and dreams with one another. A version of this easy, warm practice could certainly be duplicated among modern picnickers young and old.

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For a short history of picnics, see: https://nationaltoday.com/national-picnic-day/

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Betsy and Tacy Start School

Now that they are five, it is time for Betsy and Tacy to start school, a prospect that intrigues Betsy and terrifies Tacy. Their older sisters Julia and Katie accompany them and introduce them to their teacher, Miss Dalton. Betsy becomes increasingly worried that Tacy, with her face bright red and seriously on the verge of tears, will not say a word. At recess, as the boys and girls march in separate lines to their separate sides of the playground, Tacy takes off. Betsy follows her.

A typical first day of school in the modern era might come much earlier in a child’s life than age five, given the prevalence of pre-school and early schooling programs. Many daycare centers follow a school-like system as well. While children might not be segregated by gender in their play spaces (although they certainly could be), it is highly unlikely that a small child could simply run from a formalized school setting without triggering an alert instantly. It takes Miss Dalton some time to locate Tacy and Betsy at Mrs. Chubbock’s store, sitting on the steps having cried their hearts out (Betsy’s tears inspired by Tacy’s, and both of their tears halted as they sample the chocolate candy with which they have been provided). For as Mrs. Chubbock knows, one cannot simultaneously cry and eat chocolate!

Miss Dalton comes up with an equally creative solution to allay Tacy’s fears: Betsy and Tacy will share a seat in their “Fashion” style school desk (see link below) that could actually seat two, with its large desktop and attached bench-style seat. This arrangement proving satisfactory, Betsy and even Tacy come to love school, love their teachers (usually!) and love learning. School life, including its social component, will be central to the Betsy-Tacy series, and the responses of Mrs. Chubbock and Miss Dalton to the situation depict beautifully the importance of treating children’s feelings with respect, dignity…and a little dose of creativity!

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On schooling in the early 1900s, see: https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/culture-magazines/1900s-education-overview

On the history of the school desk, see: https://www.motal.org/school-bench-and-desks.html

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The Duo Become a Trio

Betsy and Tacy meet Tib at the very end of Betsy-Tacy, but it is in Betsy-Tacy and Tib that the friendships flower, and the unit of two expands to include a third. Tib proves to be the perfect addition to the Betsy-Tacy duo. She ensures that Betsy and Tacy’s relationship will not become too insular, and she brings a welcome new energy to their lives. Exotically different but with a down-to-earth practicality, Tib enchants Betsy and Tacy, and brings a steady, grounding presence to their lives. In short (pun intended, for Tib is tiny!), Tib opens up their world.

Tib is German-American, the granddaughter of immigrants, and has had a very different upbringing than either Betsy or Tacy. Tib’s family instills in her a deep appreciation for heritage and a strong work ethic. Tib’s mother insists that she learn to cook, clean, and sew, even as a young child, while Tib’s father insinuates that she will someday be a “housewife” (p. 49, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). Meanwhile, Betsy and Tacy have fewer domestic chores, and it is clear, even at this young age, that Betsy aspires to be a professional writer.

There are known benefits and challenges when a group of two friends becomes a group of three. Alliances are now possible, but so are new pathways for learning and understanding. Children in the modern age are exposed to so many things (bad and good) on TV, the internet, and social media, that is more important than ever that they form healthy, grounding, face-to-face friendships in which they can learn about other cultures, values, and lifestyles personally, directly. Now, just as one hundred years ago, managing the challenges of sustaining a group of three friends can help children develop critical skills of diplomacy and conflict resolution.

The friendship of Betsy, Tacy, and Tib serves as an excellent example of this. As we will see throughout the series, the girls respect and enjoy one another’s differences. They form deep, resilient bonds on the basis of those differences, not despite them. In fact, to correct the last sentence of the first paragraph in this post, the three of them open up one another’s worlds. Avoiding unnecessary alliances, supporting one another’s choices and preferences, they expand their collective horizons, and function beautifully and lovingly as a team greater than the sum of its parts.

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On Tib’s German heritage, see: Claudia Mills. “Diversity in Deep Valley: Encountering the “Other” in the Betsy-Tacy Series.” Children’s Literature, vol. 32, 2004, p. 84-111. Project MUSE. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/chl.2004.0018.

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Learning to Fly

During a one-month period when they are not allowed to play on the Big Hill (a punishment for having begged for food at the Ekstrom house atop the hill!), Betsy, Tacy, and Tib decide that they will learn how to fly. They begin by leaping off of relatively low-lying structures — a horse hitching block, a porch railing — while waving their arms in the air. “It feels just like jumping,” Tib comments, with trademark practicality. But the game gets scary and a lot more real when they size up the big maple in Betsy’s backyard and prepare to leap off its lofty lowest branch.

Tib and Tacy go first, with some trepidation, but when it is Betsy’s turn and she sees how far the branch is from the ground, she hesitates. Rather than jump, she begins to tell a story about three little girls who turned into birds. She spins one of her most charming tales, naming the birds Tibbin, Tacin, and Betsin, sending them flying through Deep Valley trees, hills, and clouds. When the birds’ mothers and siblings begin to weep with worry, the birds decide to change back into girls, which Betsy demonstrates by climbing down from the tree.

In a gorgeous book called The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds, written by David Almond, illustrated by Laura Carlin, published in 2022, a magical woman transforms the children in town into all types of birds. The children experience the joys and freedom of flight. As in Betsy’s story, the parents are initially, and understandably, terrified. But as they begin to question their fears, they transcend them, and join their children in flight. For flight, it turns out, requires freedom from limitations that are often self imposed. And the sky above the town becomes a festival of color and song.

Later, Tib notes that in the course of telling the story, Betsy had forgotten to fly from the tree! Tacy, however, knows that it was no oversight. Betsy had been afraid to jump off of the branch and had invented the story as a distraction device, while Tacy and Tib had gamely taken the leap. As Tib makes a joke about Betsy having forgotten to take her turn to fly, Betsy looks over at Tacy, warily. But Tacy refuses to meet Betsy’s glance. She “was looking the other way hard” (p. 27, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993).

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Source: Almond, D. 2022. The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds. Penguin. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/716077/the-woman-who-turned-children-into-birds-by-david-almond-illustrated-by-laura-carlin/

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Growing Up, Overnight

This is the book in which Betsy, Tacy, and Tib all turn ten, with two numbers in their age, and therefore, according to them, have officially grown up. Their birthdays don’t actually count, they inform anyone who will listen, until all three of them turn ten. So Tacy and Tib wait until Betsy celebrates her birthday in April, and then they all officially declare themselves grownups.

They try using fancy words like “indeed” and “prefer” (which Tib doesn’t know the meaning of), begin referring to one another by their longer given names Elizabeth, Thelma, and Anastacia (which sends them into peals of laughter), and practice drinking tea with a raised pinky flourish. (They discard these affectations just as quickly.) They venture further across the Big Hill than they ever have before, coming upon the community of Little Syria, which they have only ever seen while out buggy riding with their parents. They even fall in love, simultaneously, with the sixteen-year-old King of Spain.

In the modern digital age, ten remains a milestone birthday, often marking a bit of a break with childish games and toys. Now considered the beginning of the “tween” years, children often receive their own smartphones at this age, or they will in a year or two, and may even be introduced to social media. The age of onset of puberty for girls has dropped steadily over the years, from 16.6 in 1860 to 14.6 in 1920, and now hovers around ten. The world is not only different for ten-year olds, they are different, too. And yet, in so many ways, they are much the same as their early-twentieth-century counterparts.

Betsy’s sensitivity to the process and meaning of growing older is one of her defining qualities throughout the series, and is a hallmark of these tween years, even today. She actively explores the meaning of life, growth, and maturity in ways that both Tacy and Tib are still more inclined to take for granted. As she “lay very still in the bed she shared with Julia and thought about growing up” on the eve of her birthday, she wonders whether maybe “it’s not so nice growing up. Maybe it’s more fun being a child” (p. 12, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). This will become an ongoing internal debate for Betsy, as it is for so many, now as then.

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Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/21/puberty-adolescence-childhood-onset
https://www.securedatarecovery.com/blog/states-where-kids-get-smartphones-earliest
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Writing to the King of Spain

Now ten years old, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib develop a crush on King Alphonso, the teenage King of Spain. This is their first crush as individuals, let alone collectively, so they are not quite sure how to think about it or handle it. But they decide that they must do something about it, together. So they write and send him a letter (with Mrs. Ekstrom’s help), proclaiming their love and suggesting Tib as a suitable future queen, for she owns a white accordion-pleated dress.

In the digital age, it is not uncommon for ten-year-old young girls to create social media accounts and use them to communicate with the outside world. According to the Atlantic Health System, in 2024, 40% of ten-year-olds had their own smartphone, and nearly one in five children between the ages of 9 and 12 used social media every day. Many follow and “like” the posts of celebrities. A modern teenage monarch would very likely have an active social media presence via which a young fan could express admiration, and the young king or queen could conceiveably send a response!

Happily, Betsy, Tacy, and Tib receive a response to their letter, too! It seemed to come from the king’s secretary, said Betsy’s mother, who read aloud the short note thanking the girls for their letter and sentiments. Still, it was wildly thrilling — just as it might be today to receive a “like” or a comment on a social media post sent to a well-known actor, singer, or star.

While sometimes (and incorrectly) dismissed as “only parasocial” and therefore not real, messages exchanged between fans and celebrities can absolutely have real meaning for all involved. They enable the sharing of visibility, affection, and emotionality, often across great physical and social distances. They are real and consequential, and so might more accurately be termed “sociomental,” for they are enable a unique form of sociality that exists in a shared cognitive space. And they most certainly can result in genuine feelings of connectedness, just as we saw in the earliest days of the 20th century, when a trio of young girls reached out to someone who lived a completely different life halfway across the world, and received attention and affirmation in return.

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On children’s smartphone use, see: https://ahs.atlantichealth.org/about-us/stay-connected/news/content-central/2024/10-facts-about-kids-and-teens-on-social-media.html#:~:text=By%20age%2010%2C%20approximately%2040,years%20old%20to%20use%20them.

On parasocial/sociomental relationships, see: Mary Chayko. 2021. Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life (3rd Edition, SAGE Publications) https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/superconnected-the-internet-digital-media-and-techno-social-life-3-259314

and

Mary Chayko. 2002. Connecting: How We Form Social Bonds and Communities in the Internet Age (SUNY Press). https://sunypress.edu/Books/C/Connecting

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The Horseless Carriage

Modern technology comes to the Betsy-Tacy universe as Mr. and Mrs. Poppy, “city people” transplanted from Minneapolis to Deep Valley, stun the small town with their acquisition of an early model automobile; a “horseless carriage.” Driven proudly (and bravely, some say) by Mr. Poppy, the horseless carriage draws a crowd wherever it goes.

Betsy, Tacy, and Tib had heard rumors of, and seen pictures of, such a vehicle, but had never really expected that one would come to their town. Betsy and Tacy are simultaneously afraid of, confused, and awestruck by the technology. “If there isn’t a horse to say ‘whoa’ to, how do you stop the thing?” Tacy wonders, sensibly (p. 17, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). Tib, however, is unafraid. She angles to be the first child to ride in it (even though classmate Winona Root, daughter of the town’s newspaper editor, generally gets to do the coolest things first via her father’s connections, and has decided to add getting the first ride to her list).

Automobiles were invented in the 1890s, with the 1901 Mercedes considered the first modern motorcar. It could go 53 miles per hour, but was far too expensive for all but the wealthiest consumers. In 1908, Henry Ford’s Model T, and the General Motors company founded by William Durant, disrupted the industry, producing more cars at a lower price point. In the 1910s, “modern” mass production techniques such as the moving assembly line, brought prices down even further, and by 1925, three-quarters of new cars were bought on credit. Starting in the 1920s, the purchasing of expensive goods on credit became established as a middle-class American habit. Of course, cars are now a mainstay of transportation as the technology continually advances. Self-driving cars are the next automobile frontier in the digital age!

While new iterations of cars will continue to figure prominently in the Betsy-Tacy books, this first appearance of the horseless carriage may be the most memorable. Not only do we get to see a brand new technology through the eyes of an amazed crowd of Deep Valley citizens in real time, we are provided a fascinating profile of those early adopters, the Poppys. And we get to see Tib’s bravado shine. Tib boldly asks for a ride, to Winona’s chagrin, and to Betsy and Tacy’s astonishment. Permission granted, she jumps in with the Poppys and rides through town waving to all triumphantly, rather like the queen of summer that she had sought to be a few years prior. The crowd is thrilled. Betsy and Tacy are beside themselves with excitement.

Later, Tib describes in detail the miraculous experience of riding in a carriage pulled not by a horse, but by nothing at all. Julia’s boyfriend Jerry dashes off madly to see it. Betsy’s father tosses his hat in the air, looking rather like a young boy, Betsy notes. A game-changing technological moment had arrived in Deep Valley.

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For photos of automobiles from this era, see: https://www.supercars.net/blog/cars-by-decade/1900s-cars/. From Lois Lenski’s illustration in the book, it seems like the 1906 Cadillac Model M might be a close match to the Poppys’ car.

On the history of the automobile, see: https://www.history.com/articles/automobiles

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First Visit to Carnegie Library

Upon discovering that Betsy has been reading the dime novels belonging to the family’s “hired girl” Rena, Betsy’s parents develop a plan to ensure that she can more easily access, and hopefully be inspired by, quality literature. They permit Betsy to visit the Carnegie Library and to take herself out to lunch — a first-ever solo expedition downtown that will be repeated bi-weekly. When Mr. Ray presents the plan to Betsy, she is thrilled. Her sisters (Julia and Margaret), Tacy, and Tib are just as excited for her.

On her first visit, Betsy is enchanted by the beautiful new library and its “orderly forest of bookcases, tall and dark” (p. 83, Harper Trophy paperback edition, 1993). She and the young librarian, Miss Sparrow, strike up a friendship that will last through high school. Miss Sparrow recommends some classics for Betsy to read, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales and the soon-to-be-classic (Miss Sparrow predicts) Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Betsy digs in and becomes immediately, joyfully, immersed. A broad smile remains on her face throughout her noon lunch break at Bierbauer’s Bakery. She realizes, correctly, that she is experiencing nothing less than a sojourn into adulthood.

The earliest American libraries were generally private or academic collections of books. In 1731, Benjamin Frankin and some of his Philadelphia associates invented the subscription library, purchasing books that would be available to all members. Other subscription libraries followed. Andrew Carnegie funded almost 1700 library buildings between 1886 and 1919, essentially forcing those towns to fund and supply the books and library operations that the buildings had been built for. Betsy frequented one of these. The U.S. library system continued to expand.

Today, there are nearly 125,000 libraries of various types across the United States, in municipalities, schools and colleges, government, the armed forces, and other settings. Libraries provide all kinds of essential services in addition to loaning books, periodicals, and other media. Increasingly, many library services are offered digitally, and are networked together to share resources. Libraries ensure that access to knowledge can be available to all, regardless of wealth. The physical spaces of libraries remain critical in the digital age; they are essential hubs of a community.

The relationship that Betsy forms with the Carnegie Library proves transformative for her. It becomes a source of comfort, friendship, intellectual stimulation, freedom, and belonging. Many of us have been similarly influenced by the libraries that have been part of our lives. While accessing library materials and services digitally is extraordinarily efficient, and has become indispensable for modern researchers and readers, there remains something special and serendipitious about browsing through stacks of books in physical libraries, about working and relaxing in a space filled with their brilliance and beauty. The physical environment of a library is just as meaningful in a digital age as in Betsy and Tacy’s pre-digital world. Maybe more.

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On the early history of libraries, see: https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/library-america

On modern libraries, see: https://libguides.ala.org/c.php?g=751692&p=9132142

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New House, New School, New Friends: Processing Change

The Rays surprise Betsy by moving from Hill Street to a big house on High Street while she is away visiting the Taggart farm. The new house has all the modern conveniences: a gas stove, a furnace, a bathroom! The girls each have their own bedroom.

Betsy feigns happiness, but is miserable. She had loved their small house with its hitching post, proximity to the Big Hill, and, especially, living across the street from Tacy. She had actually loved the coziness of bathing in the kitchen and sleeping in the same bed as Julia. And even Tib has left town; her family has moved back to Milwaukee.

No sooner do the Rays get settled in than Betsy must start high school, which is just two blocks from the new house. She and Tacy begin to familiarize themselves with the school clubs (Zetamathians and Philomathians), customs (back corner assembly seats are the best!) and classes (Latin, algebra, ancient history, composition). New “hired girl” Anna moves in, too, replete with fantastical stories about her prior (possibly fictional?) employers, the McCloskeys. This whirlwind of activity distracts Betsy from her sorrow.

Winona, Carney, Bonnie, Cab, Irma, Larry, Herbert, Tony, and Tom (when he is not away at his military school Cox Military) join Betsy and Tacy in a bustling social group that will become known as “the Crowd.” Their parties and antics will circumscribe Betsy’s life in the high school books, even as the group expands, contracts, and changes over the years. Betsy is excited to see that Joe Willard also goes to her high school. But he doesn’t seem to socialize or to want to join a Crowd; it turns out that he is an orphan, has a job after school, and needs the money. And after their chemistry-filled meet-cute at his family’s store at the end of summer, he’s now barely acknowledging Betsy.

Personal and societal change is a historical constant, of course, in which technology has always played a large part. Many aspects of life in the digital age, from work to play to love and leisure, are marked by rapid, disruptive, ever-accelerating technological change. Every social institution has been transformed by technology, from the family to education to religion to the government. And the Betsy-Tacy series demonstrates that this has always been the case. In Heaven to Betsy we see the impact of technological change on one small group of Midwesterners, and one young woman in particular, as more modern conveniences (telephones, gas stoves, automobiles, better hair curlers!) become a part of her everyday life, and she feels her life expand in previously unimaginable ways.

Betsy must process some of life’s many upheavals in this book. While she resists new things and new ways at first, she will soon come to realize their value. She will make some strikingly bold moves of her own in the years to come, including changing her religion, dropping out of college, and traveling the world, largely on her own. The theme of coping with change will be a recurrent one in the series. As the epigraph to Heaven to Betsy, a quote from Henry W. Longfellow, poignantly states, “All things must change. To something new, to something strange.”

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On the varied impacts of digitality and technological change on community, society, and self, see: Mary Chayko. 2021. Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life. (3rd edition, SAGE) https://collegepublishing.sagepub.com/products/superconnected-the-internet-digital-media-and-techno-social-life-3-259314