We went today to Elmwood, Nebraska, the longtime home of writer Bess Streeter Aldrich. She started publishing as a married adult and mother, then got serious about her writing when her husband died and she had four children to support. We haven't read much of her work - only an article from 1933 first published in the Ladies' Home Journal - but that short bit suggested she's witty and funny. The kids' school is named after her, and we've been meaning to visit her home this summer, and today was the day. There's a (large) mural of her in town, and the house was donated in the mid-1990's to a local organization that also runs a small museum dedicated to her work. The house was beautiful; she designed much of it herself, and it's full of charming details like closets and built-in cabinets for china and a second bathroom (apparently unheard of in 1922, when the house was built.) The garden contains every flower mentioned in any of her stories, and much of the furniture is original. Students in a local school figured out what her china pattern had been, bought a set, and donated it. 
I was most struck by her desk. The house is fairly large - the bedrooms are upstairs, and the main level includes a sunporch, a living room, formal dining room, a more informal eating area, a good-sized kitchen, and then her "study." In most houses, I suspect this would have been family space; it was a beautiful room with a great fireplace, and quite large. Her desk, complete with hidden typewriter compartment, dominates the room, and the guide told us she positioned it so that she could keep an eye on the children while they played outside as she wrote. This was a serious writer, who took her writing seriously. We played outside a bit, and then drove home - we might go back at Christmas, when the house is reportedly very beautifully decorated.
I was most struck by her desk. The house is fairly large - the bedrooms are upstairs, and the main level includes a sunporch, a living room, formal dining room, a more informal eating area, a good-sized kitchen, and then her "study." In most houses, I suspect this would have been family space; it was a beautiful room with a great fireplace, and quite large. Her desk, complete with hidden typewriter compartment, dominates the room, and the guide told us she positioned it so that she could keep an eye on the children while they played outside as she wrote. This was a serious writer, who took her writing seriously. We played outside a bit, and then drove home - we might go back at Christmas, when the house is reportedly very beautifully decorated.
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