attended to other matters relating to his practice, their daughter, who had been dropped off alone in the safe sanctuary of the public reading room, spent eight hours a day devouring books. âComing upon a shelf of fairy stories, I read each wonderful book as fast as I could,â she remembered. Back in Ladora, she had to make do with what she could get, which wasnât much. The town was too small to have its own library, and though Carnegieâs famed program had came to Mildredâs area, it bestowed a library not on Ladora, but on the nearby town of Marengo. The Marengo Public Library was opened just after Mildredâs birth in August of 1905, but she never went there. Her father made use of the horse and buggy, and later the family car, for house calls, and no one had time to take Mildred the long seven miles to Marengo.
This was a difficult situation, to say the least, for there was nothing she cherished so much as reading. âI read everything I could get my hands on as a child,â she told an interviewer, including the newspaper, in which she followed the far-off events of World War I as it escalated. âI craved to read, but the available literature neither challenged nor satisfied me. Magazines in part filled the void.
St. Nicholas,
a monthly, was my favorite,â she remembered. âI devoured every page, but mystery serials by Augusta H. Seaman and a series of career articles devoted to men who accomplished unusual things in the work world especially appealed to me.â Even the townâs high school library, her one possible resource for books, was a bust, âa single glass case filled mostly with dusty textbooks and a complete set of Dickens, through which I struggled laboriously.â On the long, hot summer days, when even the school library was closed, she would sit in a big leather chair in the familyâs sparsely furnished library and attempt to read her parentsâ few and lugubrious volumes. â[They] werenât very readable books most of them,â she confessed later. So, in order to get her fillâor at least as close to it as was possibleâshe did the obvious thing, with her usual determination: âI just borrowed them from whoever. I got books wherever I could find them.â
This often meant getting books on loan from the town boys, which was fine with Mildred. She was an inveterate doll-hater and much preferred boysâ pastimes anyway. After she proved herself, they even allowed her to join their games, provided, she explained, that she played âaccording to their rules and I couldnât be a sissy.â School recess was a far cry from the genteel snack time familiar to later generations. In fact, it was out-and-out warfare: âWe had a hut that we built down there on the school yard and we had fights . . . during recess time . . . we had organized battles, with sticks, and weâd pound each other [until] they put a stop to that,â Mildred recalled. âWe could hardly wait to recess to start our fights.â She liked boysâ books just as much as she liked their battles. Among the volumes she tore through were not only the books that Edward Stratemeyer had loved as a boy, but the ones he had begun to write. âIn general, I preferred boysâ books to those written for girls,â she remembered. âI raced through many of the Horatio Alger books because they were everywhere, the
Rover Boys,
and a few of the popular
Ruth Fielding
stories, never dreaming I would be asked to write this series in later years.â
Her mother had somewhat different ideas about Mildredâs recreation habits, however. âShe was always trying to get me out of the books. She thought I stayed in the house and read too much so she was always trying to get me to go outdoors and play with the other children.â Perhaps for this reason, her mother entered her into school early, just before she turned five, so
This was a difficult situation, to say the least, for there was nothing she cherished so much as reading. âI read everything I could get my hands on as a child,â she told an interviewer, including the newspaper, in which she followed the far-off events of World War I as it escalated. âI craved to read, but the available literature neither challenged nor satisfied me. Magazines in part filled the void.
St. Nicholas,
a monthly, was my favorite,â she remembered. âI devoured every page, but mystery serials by Augusta H. Seaman and a series of career articles devoted to men who accomplished unusual things in the work world especially appealed to me.â Even the townâs high school library, her one possible resource for books, was a bust, âa single glass case filled mostly with dusty textbooks and a complete set of Dickens, through which I struggled laboriously.â On the long, hot summer days, when even the school library was closed, she would sit in a big leather chair in the familyâs sparsely furnished library and attempt to read her parentsâ few and lugubrious volumes. â[They] werenât very readable books most of them,â she confessed later. So, in order to get her fillâor at least as close to it as was possibleâshe did the obvious thing, with her usual determination: âI just borrowed them from whoever. I got books wherever I could find them.â
This often meant getting books on loan from the town boys, which was fine with Mildred. She was an inveterate doll-hater and much preferred boysâ pastimes anyway. After she proved herself, they even allowed her to join their games, provided, she explained, that she played âaccording to their rules and I couldnât be a sissy.â School recess was a far cry from the genteel snack time familiar to later generations. In fact, it was out-and-out warfare: âWe had a hut that we built down there on the school yard and we had fights . . . during recess time . . . we had organized battles, with sticks, and weâd pound each other [until] they put a stop to that,â Mildred recalled. âWe could hardly wait to recess to start our fights.â She liked boysâ books just as much as she liked their battles. Among the volumes she tore through were not only the books that Edward Stratemeyer had loved as a boy, but the ones he had begun to write. âIn general, I preferred boysâ books to those written for girls,â she remembered. âI raced through many of the Horatio Alger books because they were everywhere, the
Rover Boys,
and a few of the popular
Ruth Fielding
stories, never dreaming I would be asked to write this series in later years.â
Her mother had somewhat different ideas about Mildredâs recreation habits, however. âShe was always trying to get me out of the books. She thought I stayed in the house and read too much so she was always trying to get me to go outdoors and play with the other children.â Perhaps for this reason, her mother entered her into school early, just before she turned five, so
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