A Prairie Childhood” by Edith Abbott “

This article is reprinted from Great Plains Quarterly, volume 23 no. 2 (Spring 2003) by permission of the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “A PRAIRIE CHILDHOOD” BY EDITH ABBOTT AN EXCERPT FROM THE CHILDREN’S CHAMPION, A BIOGRAPHY OF GRACE ABBOTT JOHN SORENSEN Grace Abbott (1878-1939) is, perhaps, the Herbert Hoover) and the first person sent to greatest champion of children’s rights in represent the U.S. at a committee of the League American history. She was a woman of in- of Nations. triguing contradictions: a life-long Republi- Grace Abbott’s courageous struggles—to can Party member and a life-long liberal protect the rights of immigrants, to increase activist; a native of the Nebraska frontier who the role of women in government, and to im- spent much of her life in the poorest immi- prove the lives of all children—are filled with grant quarters of urban Chicago; an unmar- adventurous tales of the remarkable human ried woman who was nicknamed “the mother ability to seek out suffering, and to do some- of America’s forty-three million children.” thing about it. She was a bold, defiant woman Grace Abbott was a public figure who was who changed our country more profoundly both much adored and bitterly, sometimes than have many Presidents. vehemently, attacked. She was a born and bred U.S. Representative Edward Keating pioneer: the first woman nominated for a Presi- summed up the feelings of innumerable Ameri- dential cabinet post (secretary of labor for cans when he stood on the floor of the Con- gress in 1939 and said, quite simply: “To me there was something about Grace Abbott which always suggested Joan of Arc.” The impressive achievements of Grace Abbott’s adult life beg on the question: how John Sorensen compiled and edited this article. He is did she come to be such an extraordinary the Founding Director of the Abbott Sisters Project and woman? The answer is, perhaps, to be found has just completed The Children’s Champion, a radio in her unusual and beautiful experiences as a biography of Grace Abbott, based upon the soon-to- child on the Great Plains. be-published book of the same name. His next endeavor will be the production of a TV portrait of Grace Abbott. “A Prairie Childhood”—an excerpt from the forthcoming Grace Abbott biography en- [GPQ 23 (Spring 2003): 93-110] titled The Children’s Champion — tells the story 93 94 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003 of Grace’s childhood in the words of her be- West”—facing the blizzards and droughts and loved sister, Edith Abbott (1876-1957), who other hardships of the covered-wagon days. was a great pioneer of social work education. Perhaps it was because we knew of the sacri- For more information on the lives and works fices made by the pioneers that we were al- of Grace and Edith Abbott, please contact the ways proud of having been born in Nebraska Abbott Sisters Research Center at the Edith and always wanted to be identified with Ne- Abbott Memorial Library in Grand Island, braska. Nebraska. Our prairie home was in a very small town in a county with a large area but with few settlers. People talked of the long future. Ev- 1. CHILDREN OF THE WESTERN PLAINS eryone seemed full of confidence. There was hope, vigorous planning, and profound belief A child’s voice was repeating, “reel lil’ sis- in the kind of success that would be the result ter . reel lil’ sister,” as she tried to pull her- of hard work and rugged will. self up the high steps of the black walnut The town site was still part of the prairie, stairway, one hand clutching her grand- and the town streets had the prairie look, with mother’s and the other holding uncertainly to clumps of buffalo grass along the sides and the banister. even in the middle of the way. There were “Yes, a real little sister—but very, very new people coming in all the time—some of quiet.” Grandmother led me from the chilly whom would stay, while others pushed on far- hallway into Mother’s room, where a coal fire ther west. No one ever seemed to go back. was burning in the little stove. There, in what In those days, the first question you asked had been my own wooden cradle, was the new anyone was, “Where did you come from?” And baby, and I can hear now my excited child’s we children considered it quite a distinction voice calling Mother to come see “my lil’ sis- to have been born in Nebraska. We were part ter, reel lil’ sister,” until I was led away, back of the town, the county, the state, and we down the cold, steep stairs. enjoyed the sense of belonging. In the long years to come, Grace was to say To the young soldiers who, like Father, had many times, in her half-serious way, “You come from President Lincoln’s armies, the know, Edith really has a remarkable memory. western plains had been the land of promise, She even recalls when I was born, and she was and the westward journey a thrilling pilgrim- only two years old at that time!” But I really age. Wherever they went, the historians tell do remember it—to the very day and hour us, those early settlers “made civilization”— that I saw for the first time the little sister who even when there seemed little to make it with would grow up and play with me. or from. And, when we were young, the spirit Grace and I always agreed that our most of the Great Adventure was still in the Ne- cherished memories were those of our prairie braska air. childhood. They are long memories, going back Trying to recover the memories of the prai- many years. We were born in Grand Island, rie days, the pictures in my mind of my sister, one of the oldest Nebraska towns, less than a Grace, and of my mother and father, are clear mile from the Overland Trail. And even when as I see again the old home with our two broth- we lived in Chicago or Washington, this west- ers, Othman and Arthur, our dear Quaker ern town and state were always home. grandmother who lived with us—and the small Children of the old frontier, we were town with its democratic way of frontier life. brought up hearing the story of the making of Grace used to say that a small western town a state in the prairie wilderness, and we knew was the most honestly democratic place in the the men and women who had cast in their world. There were no people who were rich, lives and fortunes for the “winning of the and the poor we all knew as individuals. They This article is reprinted from Great Plains Quarterly, volume 23 no. 2 (Spring 2003) by permission of the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “A PRAIRIE CHILDHOOD” 95 FIG. 1. Grand Island in 1885 from the top of the Hall County Courthouse looking south. Photograph by J. R. Moeller, 1885, Grand Island Souvenir Book. Courtesy of Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer. were people to whom we were expected to be sometimes said, “How I liked our house. It was especially polite and kind—people who had a very nice log house.” And when Grace would had one misfortune or another, people whom ask, “But how could a log house be a nice we should try to help. house, Mother?” she would tell us about the big open fire and about the large room just for 2. FAMILY TRADITIONS weaving. Grandmother, with a brother and a sister, In the quiet life of an early western town, became a pioneer settler along the Kishwaukee family stories and family traditions were im- River. In the days before bridges had been portant in the lives of children, and our par- built across the larger rivers, our mother’s fa- ents’ tales of their families seemed to belong ther had drowned some months before she was to the history of the country and to be part of born when he was trying to swim with his the great American traditions. horse across the Kishwaukee during a season Two of Father’s great-great-grandfathers of high water, on his way to get supplies. He had been in the Colonial Wars, and one of his and his horse were both good swimmers, but grandfathers in the Revolutionary War. We the horse probably got his feet tangled in the knew the story of Mother’s Quaker family, the water lilies, and they both went down. Grand- Gardners—how her grandfather, John Gard- mother never spoke of that tragedy, but Mother ner, had come to this country to be an aide- once told me the story as she had learned to de-camp to his brother, an officer in Lord know it. Cornwallis’s army, and how, at the risk of be- The abolitionist traditions and the history ing tried for treason, he had left the British of the anti-slavery movement were also a part army because he had become a “convinced of our life. There were endless stories about Friend” and married a Quaker girl in the Lincoln and arguments about the campaigns Genesee Valley in New York State. of the Civil War, which Father always called When life seemed difficult, we heard sto- the “War of the Rebellion.” ries of how much harder things had been when Men who came to see Father had been, Father and Mother were children.

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