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1988

Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic

Ruth Ann Alexander South Dakota State University

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Alexander, Ruth Ann, "Elaine Goodale Eastman and the Failure of the Feminist Protestant Ethic" (1988). Great Plains Quarterly. 371. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/371

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN AND THE FAILURE OF THE FEMINIST PROTESTANT ETHIC

RUTH ANN ALEXANDER

Elaine Goodale Eastman's childhood dreams braska Press, they are out of print and virtually of becoming a writer were not to be fulfilled as unknown. Under her own name, she wrote she imagined them. Her literary talent was three books that she called "pot boilers" for subverted by conflicting forces in her life to income during her marriage. 2 A fourth novel, which she also subscribed but that thwarted showing more literary sophistication, appeared the artistic development of that talent. Al­ in 1928. Two serious works were published in though she wrote throughout her ninety years 1935 when she was over seventy-Pratt the Red and couldn't remember a time that she Man's Moses and her best novel, One Hundred wouldn't rather write than eat, she never Maples.] Publication of her poetry was even satisfied "the notion ... unreasonably in the more fragmented. In her final compilation of back of my head that someday I might write a poems, The Voice at Eve, "the scattered verses" book that would live."! If she is remembered at that had appeared in magazines over half a all it is as the wife of the Sioux physician century were "bound between covers." In the Charles Alexander Eastman, or Ohiyesa, not introduction to them she comments wryly, in her own right. "How broken-winged they flutter and fall, Elaine Eastman's books have not lived. beside the soaring dreams of youth."4 Except for her memoir, Sister to the Sioux, Nurtured among the meadows, brooks, recently published by the University of Ne- and woods of the Berkshires during the waning days of transcendentalism in the 1860s and 1870s, Elaine Goodale enjoyed a New England Ruth Ann Alexander, who heads the English childhood consisting of plain and frugal living department at South Dakota State University, has in the close family circle at Sky Farm, a published several articles on South Dakota litera­ Thoreau-like enthusiasm for the nature and ture. During 1987 she used a Bunting Fellowship wildlife about her, and heavy doses of Shake­ at Radcliffe to work on a biography of Elaine speare, Dickens, Hawthorne, and Longfellow Goodale Eastman. from the small but select family library. Her precocious literary talent resulted in the publi­ [GPQ 8 (Spring 1988): 89-101] cation of Apple Blossoms: Verses of Two Chi!- 89 90 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988 dren in 1879 when she was fifteen years old.s money. In such an ethical system, a woman's The poems were culled from the childish "success" is measured by her husband's, and scribblings of Elaine and her sister Dora and she polishes her skills and develops her talents received favorable comment from such critics to enable her to snare a man who will succeed as Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oliver in achieving God's favor on earth. Wendell Holmes, and Helen Hunt Jackson.6 Women of ability and intelligence knew Such an auspicious blooming in the lap of very well the risks attendant upon total Yankee culture appeared to promise a distin­ dependence upon a man. He might die or guished literary career for the brilliant young desert or betray her instead of succeeding for woman. Late in life, Eastman wondered that her. Such women also chafed at being merely "no effort was made to launch me upon the decorative or ornamental or a possession in a journalistic or purely literary career for which I man's life. Therefore, without articulating or had shown most fitness." Indeed, before she perhaps ever fully understanding it, they was twenty, she saw herself as destined for developed a corollary feminist Protestant ethic individual achievement apart from the usual that sanctified their own activities, personal path of marriage and motherhood available to development, and work. A woman should most young women of her time. She described practice all the virtues of the Protestant ethic­ herself as a "non-conformist, indifferent to industry, thrift, enterprise, asceticism-and fashion and disliking the prescribed figure, she should strenuously work toward self­ firmly molded of steel and whalebone ... an improvement and education, but her efforts ardent votary of dress reform long before the were to be used in the service of others-her movement had any general support." She had husband, her family, a cause. She might work, no interest in romance or love, rejecting but not for herself. While the Protestant ethic "admirers" with "unconscionable indigna­ in the service of capitalism appeared to lead to tion."; selfishness, the feminist Protestant ethic was selfless. It enabled women to work in exciting, THE FEMINIST PROTESTANT ETHIC unconventional jobs, but not without cost to the women. If Elaine Goodale Eastman did not become This philosophical assumption, though the writer she dreamed of, the reason can be never baldly stated, provides the explanation found in the feminist Protestant ethic, which and motivation for the achievements of many she imbibed with the plain living and high nineteenth century women. Missionaries, abo­ thinking of her childhood. The notion that litionists and reformers, and suffragists reflect the Christian virtues of hard work, frugality, elements of it. Elaine Goodale Eastman is a and asceticism are related to material success, case in point-in fact, her life illustrates not what has been termed the Protestant Ethic, only the power of the feminist Protestant ethic provided the moral energy for nineteenth but also its ultimate failure in providing century American business and industrial satisfaction and fulfillment to a woman. In leaders and the justification of rugged individ­ serving both a "cause" and her husband's ualism that characterized them. This ideal career, she achieved temporary fame but never model totally excluded women. A Horatio adequate recognition of her work. Alger heroine was inconceivable. More likely, an accomplished and attractive wife was SISTER To THE SIOUX thought to be the prize awarded to a man who assiduously practiced the Protestant Ethic-as In the 1880s and 1890s, Elaine Goodale Henry James noted in The American. Christo­ achieved considerable eminence as an out­ pher Newman desired a wife as a kind of spoken advocate for Indians. When she was monument to perch on top of his pile of twenty years old and in need of employment to ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 91 repair her family's fortunes, General Samuel she sent a steady stream of letters and reports Chapman Armstrong, founder of Hampton back to Eastern papers, turning out "propa­ Institute, offered her a position as teacher to ganda rather than literature," as she later about one hundred Sioux Indians who had wrote. II She attended a Mohonk Conference been added to the enrollment of black freed­ on the Indian and knew most of the Indian men at the Virginia school. Elaine later said reformers of this period of great change in that General Armstrong had the strongest United States Indian policy. In fact, by the end influence on her life after her parents. "I of the decade she had attained considerable caught fire from the irresistable enthusiasm, fame as a champion of the Sioux. making bold almost at once to spread the new Eastman was powerfully drawn to the gospel of opportunity for the red man, through "primitive life" of the plains Indian. She impassioned articles in the 'Independent' and longed for an even deeper immersion in native other leading journals."B Thereafter, through­ life than she had experienced in three years of out her life, she used her pen vigorously in the teaching. In the summer of 1889, she accompa­ cause. Poetry gave way to polemic and, in her nied Whirling Hawk's band on a hunt in the later life, to history. Both her 1935 biography Nebraska Sand Hills. Her passion for outdoor of Richard Pratt, head of Carlisle Indian life, cultivated in the Berkshires of Massachu­ School, and her 1945 article on the history of setts, found ample expression as she rode her the Ghost Dance and the Wounded Knee pony across great tracts of prairie and plain, Massacre are now recognized as important passing infrequent, lonely homesteaders or historical documents on the transition period ranchers or a struggling frontier town. She in plains Indian history.9 lived like her companions, wearing a calico Thus the first force in the feminist Protes­ dress and moccasins, bathing in the streams, tant ethic to subvert Eastman's literary aspi­ cooking over buffalo chip fires, eating antelope ration was commitment to a cause, the cause of meat with relish, sleeping in a tipi. The middle­ defending and educating the Indian. Her early aged traditional Indian men of the party spoke fame rested upon her descriptions of the no English, but she spoke Dakota and carried Dakota people and her exhortations to the only a Dakota Testament with her. Yet even nation on their behalf. Her writing grew out of in this close proximity to her Indian compan­ her actual experience in getting to know these ions, Eastman was ever the writer. She kept a people. Not content to teach the Indians journal and commented upon the sights she without understanding their culture, she per­ witnessed and the experiences she shared: the suaded Armstrong to arrange a visit for her to visit of Chasing Crane who brought word of Dakota Territory in 1885. In the company of the Ghost Dance to the camp, the birth of a Bishop Hobart Hare, Herbert Welch, and child, trading with white settlers, picking mint Florence Bascom, she traveled from Crow and balm, working on a pair of Indian Creek to the Lower Brule to Standing Rock to moccasins with porcupine quills. 12 Rosebud to Pine Ridge in the late summer and Such activity prepared her more fully for early fall. When she returned to Hampton, she the position she sought and obtained in early had received a "call," had "made up her mind 1890-Supervisor of Indian Education in the to begin at the beginning in the heart of a two Dakotas for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. newly transplanted, leaderless, bewildered Eastman hired an Indian couple, purchased a little community."l0 In 1886, she became a team and wagon, and spent the summer teacher at the Indian Day School at the White camping out, visiting day schools on every River camp on the Lower Brule. reservation, initiating teacher's institutes, and For three years, Eastman labored diligently frequently circumventing the government In­ in this vineyard. The teaching was rigorous, dian agent to get better materials, more food, demanding, and financially unrewarding, but fresher air, and less rigid discipline for students 92 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988 in these primitive schools. In addition she weeks, the two fell in love and announced visited Sitting Bull and Big Foot's band and their engagement. Their romance took on watched the Ghost Dance craze sweep across heightened drama against the tension, horror, the reservations. I) November 1890 found her and trauma of the Wounded Knee Massacre of camped outside the Pine Ridge Agency among 29 December 1890. Both had counseled pa­ the Lakota. tience and calm during the Ghost Dance scare and had advocated supplying blankets, food, MARRIAGE and medicine to quiet the rumblings of the desperate Indians. Both were shaken by the The next months were fateful for Eastman brutality of the army's response to Big Foot's and culminated in her marriage, the second pitiful band, which Charles discovered when force of the Protestant ethic that prevented her he rode out in search of survivors and found from fulfilling her dream of literary distinction. many dead and wounded Indians. Both were To Pine Ridge also had come in November a horrified by the deaths of women and chil­ young, handsome, educated Santee Sioux, dren. Elaine Goodale helped nurse the Charles Alexander Eastman, or Ohiyesa, as he wounded that Dr. Eastman cared for in a was known in Dakota. If Elaine Goodale was a converted church. This comradeship in the true daughter of New England, this young face of disaster sealed their relationship. With­ man was a true son of Native American in six months they were married in a widely culture. Born to the Mdewakanton band of publicized New York wedding. the Santee Sioux in Minnesota, Ohiyesa was In her memoirs, Elaine Goodale Eastman only four years old when remnants of his speaks of her marriage as "the gift of myself to mother's family fled with him to Canada after a Sioux." Her memoir entries significantly end defeat in the Minnesota Uprising of 1862. For at that point-indicating that Eastman saw her more than a decade, he was reared to become a life as over. As a true follower of the feminist great hunter-warrior in the traditional plains Protestant ethic, to her marriage meant Indian fashion. When he was almost fifteen, subordinating her life to that of her husband. his father reclaimed him and they returned to As she later wrote, "for many a year, every live in the Santee settlement at Flandreau, early dream and ambition was wholly subordi­ South Dakota. His father, Many Lightnings, nated to the business of helping my talented had converted to Christianity and had decided husband express himself and interpret his to follow the white man's way after he had people." She used her talent and ambition to been imprisoned for his part in the Uprising. create a comfortable home for him, to bear When he found Ohiyesa in Canada, he per­ and rear his children, and to advance his work suaded his son that such a path was the only and career. Her dream of writing, of achieving alternative for Indian survival. Ohiyesa took any great artistic accomplishment for herself, the name Charles Alexander Eastman and faded into the background. She carried the began the long process of learning English, same missionary zeal into marriage that she white customs, the Christian faith, and Ameri­ had carried into her work with the Indians­ can values. Thus, during the years that Elaine indeed, in some respects it was simply an Goodale immersed herself in his culture and in extension of that endeavor. She wrote that getting to know his people and his country, marriage "followed almost inevitably upon my her future husband acquired a New England passionate pre-occupation with the welfare of education at Dartmouth, a M.D. at Boston those whom I already looked upon as my University, and a reputation as the model adopted people." Almost fifty years later, young Indian who would assimilate into looking back at this crucial moment in her life, American life. 14 Eastman wrote that she had had a "thrilling Almost inevitably, in the course of six sense of two-fold consecration. I gave myself ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 93 wholly in that hour to the traditional duties of favorably received her first poetry fifteen years wife and mother, abruptly relinquishing all earlier.17 The stories appeared in the magazine thought of an independent career for the in 1893 and 1894 and were collected into making of a home. At the same time I Charles Eastman's first book, Indian Boyhood, embraced with a new and deeper zeal the in 1902. conception of life-long service to my husband's Forthcoming in the next two decades was a people."ls whole flood of works under his name, some for Thus the two forces-her sense of ded­ children, some for adults: Red Hunters and the icated service to a cause and her traditional Animal People (1904); Old Indian Days (1907); concept of wife as helpmate to her husband­ The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation (1911); controlled Elaine's destiny until she was al­ Indian Child Life (1913); Indian Scout Talks: A most sixty. In the three decades following her Guide for Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls (1914); marriage, she bore six children and took The Indian Today (1915); From the Deep Woods responsibility for much of their early educa­ to Civilization (1916); Indian Heroes and Chief­ tion. She struggled to make a home for her tains (1918). Immensely popular, these books husband, sometimes under difficult circum­ made Charles famous as the leading Indian of stances, wherever his fortunes took the family. these decades, a sought-after lecturer. Even­ They moved from Pine Ridge to St. Paul to tually, his writing and speaking absorbed all Washington to Carlisle Indian School to Crow his time. The books have been translated and Creek reservation to Bald Eagle Lake, Minne­ reprinted and some are still read today as sota, before they finally settled in Amherst, classic Indian works. He is recognized as the Massachusetts, in 1903. Dr. Eastman found first Indian writer of real fame among white that pursuing a career and practicing medicine readers. in the white man's world required political Elaine Eastman's role in this outpouring skills and competitive drive that he did not has never been adequately assessed. Two always have. additional works, Wigwam Evenings (1909) and Smoky Day's Wigwam Evenings (1910) carry her name as co-author. Significantly, these latter WRITER As HELPMATE books do not recount Charles's life nor Eastman's duties as a wife and mother did advance information nor opinion on Indian not stop her writing, however. She used her culture. Instead, they retell Indian stories, literary talent to support her husband's career making the Indian oral tradition accessible to and to improve the always precarious family the non-Indian. Charles Eastman himself finances. Very early in their marriage, Dr. publicly recognized his wife's assistance. In Eastman became embroiled in a dispute with From the Deep Woods to Civilization he com­ the government agent at Pine Ridge and the ments, "we have worked together, she in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His wife defended little leisure remaining to the mother of six him by writing letters to papers-letters that, children, and I in the intervals of lecturing and apparently, only solidified the opposition. 16 other employment."18 Elaine wrote the "Fore­ When forced to leave government service and word" to From the Deep Woods, and The Soul of begin private practice in St. Paul, Dr. Eastman the Indian is dedicated to her: "in grateful desperately needed additional income. recognition of her ever-inspiring compan­ Eastman recognized the potential of her hus­ ionship in thought and work and in love of her band's stories of his Indian childhood that he most Indian-like virtues."19 wanted to preserve for their own children. She But Elaine's contribution to the writing suggested he write them down and she "care­ was certainly more direct and specific than fully edited" them and submitted them to St. diffuse "inspiration" or generalized "influ­ Nicholas Magazine, a publication that had ence." She claimed she "collaborated more or 94 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988 less" on all of his books. 20 In a letter to Dreams," and they are united in love. Dartmouth, she asserted, "Dr. Eastman's The mountain setting is poetically evoked books left his hand as a rough draft in pencil, in a style studded with natural images, appro­ on scratch paper." These she typed and priate to "Little Brother." Eastman probably revised, "omitting, and rewriting as nec­ reveals her own frustrated poetic impulse essary."21 A niece from Flandreau who spent through this character. The snowstorm be­ the summer of 1903 with the Eastmans at Bald comes "White Bird singing"; the brook in Eagle Lake in Minnesota recounted that spring bursts "its icy armor and [runs] bois­ Elaine would settle at her typewriter in the terously over the meadow, half-laughing and evening "with Charles and his notes for the half-crying, and all but breaking its heart for day" and compose the chapters of the new pure joy"; an old curly maple holds Little manuscript-presumably Red Hunters and the Brother on her lap like a mother.23 Animal People. 22 Yet there is a solidity to her descriptions of hiving bees, chimney swallows, lilies, daisies, cinnamon roses, snakes, and cocoons that WRITER OF POTBOILERS bespeaks genuine knowledge and familiarity. In addition to her contributions to Eastman's enthusiasm for nature is reflected in Charles's books during the first thirty years of the country images of her early poetry. One of their marriage, Elaine wrote some work of her her early volumes was even sub-titled "In own-occasional essays, poems, plays, and Berkshire with the Wildflowers" and one pageants, published in obscure papers, if at all, poem, "Ashes of Roses," was set to music. But and the three books which she referred to as she saw more in nature than poetic images; she "pot-boilers": Little Brother 0' Dreams (1910), was fascinated by botany. She says that in her Yellow Star: A Story of East and West (1911), childhood, the Goodales had an "artist friend and Indian Legends Retold (1919). The last book ... to instruct us in botany and sketching."24 used Indian material she had used profitably The niece from Flandreau who summered with before, but the two earlier works drew upon the Eastmans in Minnesota in 1903 remem­ her own life and experience more fully and bered that Elaine Eastman sent the children indicate some of the creative imagination she out in the morning to collect specimens for had for both fiction and poetry. their botany study and identified them from a Little Brother 0' Dreams is thoroughly book in the afternoon. She noted that romantic and sentimental, presumably de­ Eastman had "never had a course in botany signed for juvenile readers. Set on a mountain­ and was learning as much as the children."25 top farm that resembles the Sky Farm of Elaine In Yellow Star, Eastman's other early Goodale's own childhood, the story has a fictional work, she created a heroine in her gossamer plot and shadowy characters. The own image. Although the heroine, Yellow Star "Little Brother" of the title is a lonely, (or Stella), is an Indian by birth (in fact, she is crippled, fatherless waif who fills his childish the surviving baby in the Wounded Knee days with imaginary friends in the trees and Massacre), her industry, her self-reliance, and animals around him and who makes up poems her sense of service are modeled on Elaine's about them. A little girl befriends him and her own values and character. The story opens family attempts to introduce him to the big when Yellow Star has been brought back to a world of cities, education, and art, but he New England village as a young woman to rejects it after awhile to care for his dying pursue an education. The missionary who mother at the poor, mountaintop farm and adopted her has died, but his widow refuses to then to live with the bees, the birds, and the abandon her adopted daughter. They live with trees as a solitary poet. The little girl grows up Aunt Sophia who does not welcome the girl and eventually finds "Little Brother 0' because she believes Yellow Star can never ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 95 leave her "savage" ways. Although Yellow Star . .. the eager childlike wish to belong was remains loyal to her ethnic heritage and already partly obscured by the more womanly staunchly defends Indians when they are and deeper desire to help."26 Furthermore attacked by thoughtless schoolmates as "cruel" Yellow Star chooses to stay with the unbend­ and "treacherous," she struggles to "belong" in ing Aunt Sophia after the death of her mother the New England community. Gradually, she rather than live with her more hospitable wins the hearts of everyone-her classmates, friends. She returns to the reservation rather including her poor but hard-working friend than go to college. And finally, she settles for Ethan, her teacher, the crusty old New En­ the subordinate role of nurse and wife to the glander Uncle Si, even her sharp-tongued physician Ethan-after she has rejected an Aunt Sophia. The story line in this respect Indian suitor. Yellow Star, the Indian, was resembles that of Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca committed to following the white Protestant of Sunnybrooke Farm, Heidi, or Eight Cousins­ ethic for women. popular juvenile stories of the time. Eastman's motivations in finding time, Yellow Star conquers because she is strong while rearing six children, to write her own and self-reliant. She saves her friend Cynthia work as well as to revise and edit her husband's from a raging bull, she collects herbs and pulls were probably multiple. Her need to write was weeds to earn money for clothes after the always strong. Later she spoke freely of having death of her adoptive mother, she nurses deserted "literature for life" and of her son Uncle Si back to health, she is top student of who said she was "always a poet" whether she her class, she even improbably saves the baby put words on paper or notY Before she took of Blue Earth, an Indian woman in a Wild the position as supervisor of Indian education, West show that Yellow Star attends. After she turned down an offer from Bishop Hobart graduating from school, Yellow Star does not Hare, whom she greatly admired, to become a go on to college, although admirers offer to "lady missionary" at Pine Ridge. In a letter to finance it, but returns to a South Dakota him, she said she had an "artistic" motive in reservation to serve her people. Yet she is not wanting to be free to live closer to Indian welcomed by the government agent nor the people. "Before I went into this Indian work, missionary's wife, who cannot accept an my art was everything to me."28 Charles "educated" Indian. She does not know wheth­ Eastman's biographer David Reed Miller er she belongs in white or Indian culture, until agrees that Elaine Eastman welcomed writing Ethan, now a doctor, comes for her just in as a chance to use her skills and to participate time to help her fight a raging prairie fire. more fully in her husband's projects. He did Together they plan to go back East where she not succeed as a physician at Pine Ridge, St. will study nursing. Paul, or Crow Creek; his work for Indian Yellow Star embodies many of Eastman's involvement in YMCA, his lobbying for characteristics and beliefs. Her delight in Indian claims in Washington, and his naming outdoor life, her love of learning, her enthu­ of Indian tribal members required long ab­ siasm for plants and herbs, her competence in sences from home. In these activities, his wife domestic skills-all of these evoke Eastman's could neither participate nor save him from own qualities. More significant in illustrating failure. But in writing his story and preparing the two driving forces in Elaine's life are it for publication, she could be a genuine Yellow Star's desire "to serve" and her accep­ partner. zq tance of woman's traditional role with a man. The overwhelming motivation for Elaine These reflect the two forces-a calling and Eastman's efforts to prod her husband to marriage-that channeled Elaine's energies publication and to write herself was, however, away from her own literary ambition. For financial. The family constantly needed mon­ example, when Yellow Star "was nearly fifteen, ey. Although she acknowledged her husband's 96 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988

talents, Eastman spoke of his career attempts family and enhance her husband's talents as "dubious experiments" and "abortive ef­ without surrendering her primary role as wife forts" that were trying to the spirit and and mother. She collected, transcribed, edited, pocketbook. 30 Recently, an Eastman grand­ perhaps even wrote, her husband's stories of daughter recalled "the financial strain" that his life and people. This required no breach of had apparently been part of the family lore loyalty to her earlier commitment to "the about the couple. Charles would give the shirt cause" of publicizing the traditional culture of off his back to whoever came in, his grand­ the Indian people whom she so admired. It daughter claimed, but his wife had to keep was, in fact, a continuation of it. She had food on the table. ll relished her journey into Indian life in the In desperate moments, Elaine Eastman put Nebraska hunt and could genuinely share her words on paper, exploiting her husband's rich husband's desire to preserve "the fragmentary fund of stories and knowledge of Indian life to recollections of my thrilling wild life expressly bolster the family finances. The St. Nicholas for the little son who came too late to behold stories of 1893-94 followed the sad surrender of for himself the dream of savage existence," as the Eastman's first home when Dr. Eastman the dedication to Indian Boyhood readsY But was forced to leave his position as government the financial motivation for her action was physician at Pine Ridge. The family faced a certainly strong: the debt to the Washington more severe crisis later. In 1899, when they left landlady was finally paid off in 1906, presu­ Washington after Charles Eastman had lob­ mably when royalties had begun to ease the bied unsuccessfully for the Santee land claims, financial burden. Significantly, however, the Eastmans owed a substantial amount of Elaine Eastman left "Indian country" in 1903, money to their landlady. Through her former never to return. Thereafter she celebrated connection with Richard Pratt, head of Car­ Indian life from the comfort of the Massachu­ lisle Indian School, Elaine Eastman obtained a setts home to which the Eastmans had moved job as editor of The Red Man and the family at her request14 moved to Pennsylvania. Eventually her hus­ The popularity of Dr. Eastman's books band found employment there, too, as outing made him a sought-after lecturer, and his wife agent, but before the year was out had took over the management and publicity of his contracted pneumonia and nearly died. When twenty-five or more annual appearances, in he recovered, in 1900, he secured an appoint­ addition to continuing her writing chores. 35 ment as government physician at Crow Creek Elaine Eastman's love of the outdoors never Reservation, but this ended in disaster three waned even in the East, and Dr. Eastman grew years later when Dr. Eastman was forced out.l ' to find great solace for his disappointments in These difficult years are omitted from his "civilized life" in the woods after 1910. He autobiographical writings. became active in the Boy Scout movement, an Not surprisingly, it was during this time enthusiasm that led the Eastmans to open a that Dr. Eastman began to publish his writings girls' camp at Granite Lake, New Hampshire, in book format. Indian Boyhood, composed in 1915. The camp, which they proposed largely of the St. Nicholas stories, emerged in would be "in harmony with the original 1902, and Red Hunters and the Animal People philosophy of the Native American," was a came out two years later. In both of these family project. Eastman managed the camp, works, his wife had a strong hand, first at the three older girls were counselors, the three Crow Creek and then at Bald Eagle Lake. younger children helped out, and Dr. E:lstman In this difficult time for the family, Elaine acted as "an Indian in residence," telling Eastman did what any woman nurtured in the stories, playing games with the children, and feminist Protestant ethic might do: volun­ teaching classes in archery and swimming. teered her talents and industry to sustain the Eastman's work was hard-she was remem- ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 97 bered by some campers as stern, unsmiling, some of Elaine's growing dissatisfaction with businesslike. J6 Yet others visited her for years her marriage during the camping years 1915- and remembered her with affection, admira­ 1921. The grandfather in the story recalls that tion, and respect. J; Harry slipped "easily out of life and the Eastman used the camp experience in The domestic responsibilities which had not Luck of Old Acres, a 1928 novel that represents seemed to weigh too heavily upon him at any a step forward from the "pot boilers." The time." Lorna is, however, devoted to her story centers around the adventures of the Bell father, and is like Harry in her "dash of daring, family, who turn their New England farm, Old a passion for adventure, a confidence and Acres, into a summer camp to bolster family verve that really amounted to genius."J8 Irene income. The Bells possess too many sterling had been Charles's favorite daughter, accom­ qualities to be believable-courage, imagina­ panying him and singing on some of his tion, good looks, resourcefulness, industry, lectures. Lorna also uses a moose call to loyalty, and talent. The other characters, summon the children, and Dr. Eastman was neighbors, visitors, and campers, spend most famous for his moose call. J9 Lorna's loyalty to of their time praising and admiring Mother her father is repaid when Harry Bell is joyfully Bell and her five children, and the story is reunited with wife and children at the end of weak in conflict. Nonetheless, Elaine Eastman the story. had based the character Lorna upon her beloved daughter Irene T aluta, who had died A MARRIAGE COLLAPSES of influenza in 1918 on the threshold of a promising operatic career. The book is ded­ In real life, however, the Eastman marriage icated to "our singer," and Lorna is also gifted broke up at the camp in August of 1921. Elaine with a beautiful voice and independent spirit. Eastman had found that selfless devotion to Turning the farm into a camp is Lorna's both cause and husband were increasingly idea, growing out of her love of outdoor life unsatisfactory antidotes to the stresses and and her study of plants and trees with her strains of the marriage. The ostensible reason grandfather, a retired minister. The mother for her husband's abrupt departure from her cooks and manages the place while the other life was the charge by a pregnant counselor children pitch in with a will to teach eager that he was the father of her child.40 Although campers swimming, canoeing, hiking, nature the charge was apparently untrue and never study, farm work, and handicrafts. They stage proved, it was the catalyst that ended the an amateur circus and an opera, and they help marriage and Charles eventually lived with his fight a fire. The setting emphasizes good food, son, Ohiyesa, in Detroit, deeding the camp to vigorous exercise, fresh air, and much time in Elaine. She struggled with it a few more years, the woods and mountains. At the end of the finally selling it for a small profit in 1924.41 The summer, the family has earned enough money Eastmans never divorced nor even admitted for Lorna to study voice, her brother to go to publicly their severed relationship, and the college, and the other children to school. family has kept the reasons for it very private. Significantly, the father of the family is The couple never reconciled, remaining sepa­ missing, believed to be dead after a train rate even in death. He was buried in Detroit in accident. Lorna is devoted to her father and 1939 and she in 1953 in Northampton, Massa­ distressed when she hears her mother crying at chusetts. 42 night and when she recognizes the weariness This was not the first scandal in which Dr. and worry her mother feels over the camping Eastman's name had surfaced. In the difficul­ project. Although The Luck of Old Acres was ties with the government agent at Crow not published until 1928, the missing and Creek, he was accused of having improper carefree character of Harry Bell may reflect relations with Augusta Hultman, superinten- 98 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988 dent of Grace Boarding School. The basis for the family. the charge appeared to be largely political, and For surely children and family win out in both Dr. Eastman and Hultman denied it, but this novel. Although it explores, in a very both were relieved of their positions at Crow contemporary way, the dilemma of the mod­ CreekY In addition, Charles Eastman biogra­ ern woman who tries to juggle a yearning for pher Raymond Wilson accepts the claim of Dr. self-realization with the demands of wifehood Herbert B. Fowler that he was a grandson of and motherhood, it ultimately affirms the Dr. Eastman, although Elaine Eastman was primacy of the home and the traditional role. not his grandmother. Fowler claims to have The central character, Ellen Strong, is mod­ had considerable contact with Dr. Eastman, eled on both Eastman and her mother. Ellen is especially in the years following the separation, poetic and imaginative, with literary ambi­ when Fowler summered at Dr. Eastman's tions, but she finds the life of a New England cabin in Ontario. Who Fowler's grandmother farm wife at the turn of the century too hard was or when and where Dr. Eastman met her and stultifying to endure-Eastman's mother have not been revealed-certainly, the family had left the farm and returned to her own has refused to recognize Fowler's claim. But parents when Elaine was grown. The child even Fowler claims that the accusation made Ellen loves the woods, hills, and fields and at the camp was unfounded.44 ranges freely over them. At college she meets Amy and Marcia, both committed to femi­ A MATURE NOVEL nism, careers, and independent lives. They encourage Ellen's literary ambition and both In her last and most mature novel, One are shocked when she marries Bart, the Hundred Maples, written long after the separa­ neighbor farm boy, to grub away on the farm, tion, Elaine Eastman dealt with marital infidel­ rearing children and keeping house. Ten years ity and illegitimacy. The character Amy, who later, Ellen feels empty and trapped in the claims to have the perfect marriage combining drudgery of serving husband and children. She both career and wifehood, does not realize that tries to be loyal to her dream of writing by her husband, Jim, has been unfaithful until the stealing time from the household, but when woman and child visit her to seek her support. her rebellious little boy, Tommy, drowns in a Amy has championed such women in her law ditch, she is overcome with grief, guilt, and practice and confronts Jim with her knowl­ anger at her husband. Taking her baby girl, edge, saying that she is willing to accept his she leaves her older son with Bart and flees to personal failure and to take responsibility for her friend Amy in Seattle. the child. Her real betrayal comes when Jim Amy appears to have achieved what Ellen refuses to admit his responsibility either in has not-a satisfying career, a devoted hus­ conceiving or in caring for the baby. "I band, a planned pregnancy. Although a couldn't pretend to believe Jim when I knew nineteenth century woman, Amy even aspires him to be lying. I couldn't back him up in to what contemporary women call the "Super­ denying his own son ... ," Amy claims. woman" syndrome: Eastman comments in her own voice, "And yet there are those who believe to this day that A woman, married or single, retained all Amy parted from her husband because he the rights of a normal person. It was equally took a mistress."45 Although men do not come clear that a wife must ask no less of herself off very well in the novel, perhaps Eastman in the marriage relation than in any oth­ was speaking for herself as well as Amy. She er .... Accordingly, she must be ready to was less troubled by her husband's sexual welcome her husband as hostess-the chate­ peccadillos, if any, than by his failure to live up laine; no other engagement must replace to her ideal of selfless devotion to children and the traditional one. There must be a dinner ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 99

perfect of its kind, however simple; ad­ CONCLUSION equate service .... invariably flowers, and. a wife as fresh and daintily dressed, with no During the last thirty years of her life, Eastman lived with her daughters in Amherst hint of the office about her. 46 and Northampton, Massachusetts. She con­ tinued to write, publishing both The Luck of Consequently, Amy comes home from the Old Acres and One Hundred Maples as well as office an hour ahead of her husband. numerous articles and Pratt the Red Man's Amy's plans for "having it all" go awry. Moses under her own name. Her husband, on Her pregnancy is difficult; her husband is the other hand, published nothing. He had unfaithful-he even makes a pass at a shocked plans for both a biography of Sacajawea and a Ellen; her baby is born dead. Ellen fears that historical novel of Pontiac, but they were Amy's notions of equality have demanded never realized. 48 Elaine was the writer in the more than Jim can give, leading to the break­ family, but Charles furnished the material and up of the marriage. A disillusioned Ellen leaves none of the books she wrote alone achieved Amy on the brink of divorce to visit Marcia. the quality or popularity of Indian Boyhood or Marcia's life is different from both Amy's The Soul of the Indian, the literary offspring of a and Ellen's. She has remained single and dynamic couple. successful-a professional woman teaching In her later years, Eastman was well aware chemistry at a university. She has traveled, of her disappointment in serving a cause and a studied, met interesting people, and turned husband rather than herself: down suitors. She confesses that her only love was a married man who ultimately refused to No, I won't say that the adjustment was leave his wife for her. Now, she tells Ellen, her easy or that I was never lonely, restless and closest relationships are with dogs and horses haunted by a secret sense of frustration. who offer "physical companionship without Every woman who has surrendered a conge­ moral responsibility." To Ellen, Marcia ap­ nial task and financial independence will pears organized, purposeful, efficient-and understand. Loving the joys of moth­ cold. She does not envy her "barren victory." erhood, my pleasures must be vicarious "It was not so much what Marcia had missed," ones. He traveled widely, even to London, Ellen muses. "No-it was that she couldn't and met hosts of interesting people. I was understand-would never know that she had inevitably housebound.49 missed it."47 In the final chapter, Ellen returns to her She also recognized that allegiance to the husband, older son, and farm, not without values of the feminist Protestant ethic was misgivings but conscious of the needs of the "neither wise nor modern," but she claims it children and the steady devotion of the was in her blood as a tenet of both her plodding Bart. He agrees to provide some grandmothers. She reiterated that point at the conveniences that will give her time and a end of One-Hundred Maples. Ellen's decision to place to write, but ultimately, service to her stick with the farm and her husband is also family triumphs. After the anguished cry of defined as a victory for the grandmothers and hunger for self-fulfillment, Ellen accepts a great-grandmothers. 50 compromise. Such a compromise was never One wonders what their lives might have available to Eastman, but she was well aware been like had Charles Eastman been able to of the dilemma of modern woman. She practice medicine successfully in "Indian coun­ dedicates One Hundred Maples to her only son, try" and had the family not returned to New Ohiyesa II, "for a better understanding of England in 1903. In spite of the failure of her woman's world." marriage and loss of direct participation in the 100 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1988

"cause" in the last third of her life, Elaine to the Sioux, pp. 13-14. Eastman never fully surrendered her loyalty to 8. "All the Days of My Life," p. 9. 9. "The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee either of her ideals. She never divorced or even Massacre of 1890-91," Nebraska History 26 Oanuary publicly admitted the separation, and she 1945): 26-42. continued to write about Indians as she had 10. Sister to the Sioux, p. 29. A detailed analysis known them at the end of the nineteenth of the intellectual basis for and the religious fervor century. According to her granddaughter, she of the Indian Reform movement in which Elaine Goodale immersed herself can be found in Frederick was a wonderful grandmother, writing poems Hoxie, A Final Promise: The Campaign to Assimilate for birthdays of grandchildren, reading her the Indians 1880-1920 (Lincoln: University of Ne­ Bible and prayer book every day, participating braska Press, 1984) and in Francis Paul Prucha, in vigorous arguments on politics with her son­ American Indian Policy in Crisis: Christian Reformers in-law, and retiring to write soon after break­ and the Indian 1865-1900 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976). fast. The grandchildren visited their Uncle 11. "All the Days of My Life," p. 12. Ohiyesa and grandfather in Ontario, but for 12. Sister to the Sioux, pp. 96-113. Elaine and Charles the estrangement was 13. Ibid., pp. 140-141. permanentY Elaine Goodale Eastman's loyalty 14. See Charles Eastman, An Indian Boyhood to the feminist Protestant ethic prevented her (New York: McClure, Phillips and Company, 1902; reprint Fenwyn Press, 1970) and Charles Eastman, from fulfilling her own literary aspirations, but From the Deep Woods to Civilization (Boston: Little, she was not prepared to give them up. She did Brown and Company, 1916). not become a poet, but neither did she become 15. Sister to the Sioux, p. 171; "All the Days of embittered. "For the ideal is and always has My Life," pp. 181-82. been to me the supreme reality," she wrote. 16. Raymond Wilson, Ohiyesa Charles Eastman, Santee Sioux (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, "No-the voice heard at eve is still the same 1983), p. In voice that spoke upon the mountain top, out 17. "All the Days of My Life," p. 182. of the rainbow mists of morning, all of sixty 18. From the Deep Woods, p. 186. crowded years ago."11 19. The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), n.p. 20. "All the Days of My Life," p. 182. NOTES 21. Wilson, Ohiyesa, p. 131. 22. David Reed Miller, "Charles Alexander 1. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Sister to the Sioux: Eastman: One Man's Journey in Two Worlds." The Memories of Elaine Goodale Eastman 1885-91, Master's thesis, Grand Forks, University of North edited by Kay Graber (Lincoln: University of Dakota, 1975, p. 218. Nebraska Press, 1978) p. 67. 23. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Little Brother 0' 2. Elaine Goodale Eastman, "All the Days of Dreams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1910) My Life," South Dakota Historical Review 2 Ouly pp. 3, 14, 33. 1937); reprinted from Elaine Goodale Eastman, The 24. Sister to the Sioux. p. 3. Voice at Eve (Chicago: the Bookfellows, 1930), 25. Miller, "One Man's Journey," pp. 218-19. p. 172. 26. Elaine Goodale Eastman, Yellow Star: A 3. Pratt the Red Man's Moses (Norman: Universi­ Story of East and West (Boston: Little, Brown and ty of Oklahoma Press, 1935); One Hundred Maples Company, 1911), p. 97. Italics in original. (Brattleboro, Vermont: Stephen Day Press, 1935). 27. "All the Days of My Life," pp. 181-82. 4. "All the Days of My Life," p. 183. 28. Elaine Goodale to Bishop Hobart Hare, 6 5. Elaine Goodale Eastman and Dora Read May 1888. Center for Western Studies, Augustana Goodale, Apple Blossoms: Verses of Two Children College, Sioux Falls, S. Dak. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1878). 29. Miller, "One Man's Journey," p. 203. 6. Sister to the Sioux, p. 11. The critics remarked 30. "All the Days of My Life," pp. 181-82. more on the unusual achievement of such young 31. Telephone interview with Cynthia Whit­ poets than on the intrinsic merit of their work. beck Risk, Northampton, Mass., 11 August 1986. Eastman commented that the critical standards 32. Miller, "One Man's Journey," pp. 184, applied to her work were not high. 187-88. 7. "All the Days of My Life," pp. 178, 174; Sister 33. Indian Boyhood, n.p. ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 101

34. Wilson, Ohiyesa, pp. 97, 125. Man's Journey," pp. 191-20. 35. "All the Days of My Life," p. 182. 44. Wilson, Ohiyesa, p. 164. 36. Miller, "One Man's Journey," p. 267. 45. One Hundred Maples, pp. 221-22. 37. Eleanor Mensel to author, 24 May 1987. 46. Ibid., p. 136. 38. The Luck of Old Acres (New York: Century 47. Ibid., pp. 177, 187. Company, 1928) pp. 10, 157. 48. Miller, "One Man's Journey," pp. 310-11. 39. Miller, "One Man's Journey," pp. 265,318. 49. "All the Days of My Life," p. 182. 40. Ibid., p. 269. 50. One Hundred Maples, p. 285. 41. Eleanor Mensel to author, 24 May 1987. 51. Whitbeck Risk interview, 11 August 1986. 42. Wilson, Ohiyesa, p. 188. 52. "All the Days of My Life," p. 184. 43. Wilson, Ohiyesa, pp. 112-15; Miller, "One