Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom by Patti Bender

Title: Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom
Author: Patti Bender
Publication: City Point Press, hardcover, 2023
Genre: Biography/Literary Criticism
Setting: Massachusetts and Maine

Patti Bender has created a biography of Boston-born writer Emilie Loring that is part labor of love and part interpretive narrative, describing a life story that was rich in friendship, idealism, and dedication to family – all of which were revealed in her books. Bender is an educator who, like me, started reading Emilie Loring’s book at a young age. After her sister Judy handed her a copy of How Can the Heart Forget, she became a fan, read and reread the books and, twenty years ago, started researching Loring’s life. Her work culminated in this new book.

Loring was born in Boston in 1866, the daughter of a playwright and publishing executive at Lee & Shepard, which published the first American edition of Alice in Wonderland. Soon after the Civil War, the family moved to Chardon Street (no New in the address then), living yards from my pre-pandemic office building in Boston. Emilie and her two siblings grew up in an affectionate family that enjoyed and participated in the performing arts but she did not start writing until years after she married a Boston lawyer, Victor Loring. She became a bestselling author. Her 30 novels are light-hearted fiction, many with elements of romantic suspense. All feature gallant and independent young heroines, many of whom find themselves in jeopardy, taking on family problems or simply trying to make a living.

Loring died in 1951 and her sons, Robert and Selden, in 1983 and 1970, respectively. However, when Bender began her search for the real Emilie Loring, she was connected to Loring’s grandchildren who shared memories and documents with her. Bender’s research and the results are impressive. Physically, the book is attractive and enticing at 595 pages. In addition to many photographs, the text is enriched by dozens of sidebar quotes from Loring’s 30 books. These fit thematically and chronologically with the text, and are delightful. For those who remember the books well, they are charming and for those who do not, they provide an introduction to Emilie’s beliefs and style.

I found the book fascinating as a social history of 20th century Boston, full of familiar names and details about my city. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Emilie’s friendships with two other writers, Clara Endicott Sears and Sara Ware Bassett. Clara was from a prestigious Boston family and was descended from John Endicott and John Winthrop, early Massachusetts Bay Colony governors (I assume she was related to John Sears, a very decent Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Governor). Her fiction never took off like Emilie’s so she eventually focused on nonfiction and turning the farmhouse that was part of Bronson Alcott’s Transcendentalist community, Fruitlands, into a museum. I was unfamiliar with Sara until very recently although she had studied at Radcliffe and taught in my own school system before her novels about Cape Cod became successful. I read South Cove Summer in 2020 but did not like it as much as Emilie’s books. However, I was amused to read that fans of her books would visit Cape Cod and look for her fictional town of “Belleport” featured in her books.

Clara Endicott Sears

Other thoughts:

• Emilie’s father had an office on Milk Street in Boston, just like my father.

• Although Emilie’s formal education ended with a year at Dean Academy in Franklin, MA when she was a teen, her husband attended BU and both sons attended Harvard. Her elder son was on the baseball team and had to sacrifice his junior and senior seasons to enlist in WWI (I was reminded that my grandfather was similarly graduated early from his Hungarian boarding school to fight on the wrong side).   Dean Academy began as a small residential school after the Civil War, became a junior college in the 1930s, and became a four-year college offering bachelor's degrees in 1994.

• All roads lead to Betsy-Tacy. Notably, Tacy Kelly from the Betsy-Tacy books is not as boy crazy as her friends Betsy and Tib. 

 “Why doesn't Tacy like boys?” asked Alice.
“But I do like them,” protested Tacy. “I just don't think they are little tin gods.” Well, it turns out that one of Emilie’s colleagues in the Boston Authors’ Club was Judge Robert Grant, known for a play, The Little Tin Gods-on-Wheels (1880), which satirized fashionable young men of high social position for their vanity and lack of occupation.

• Emily’s brother’s Robert became a playwright and his dramatization of Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon’s novel earned him thousands of dollars. Some will recall that Joe Willard tells Betsy Ray he tried to read every book in the Deep Valley library. He says he bogged down when he got to George Barr McCutcheon. Later, the Beverly of Graustark opera comes to the Deep Valley opera house and Joe takes Betsy to see it.  I have a copy of the book but have never read it although I like Ruritanian fiction.  

• I remembered one of Emilie’s heroines was named Constance: in fact there were two: Constance Trent in High of Heart (1938) and Constance Wyndham in Spring Always Comes (1966). Spring Always Comes was written by Loring’s sons after her death. Emilie must have liked the name because when she began her writing career with columns for the Boston Herald in 1911, she wrote in the style of letters to a friend, Constance.

• During WWII, the gold dome of Boston’s majestic State House was painted gray to hide it from enemy aircraft.  It has been regilded several times, most recently at an estimated cost of $1.5 million.

• I would like to know if Loring’s path ever crossed with another bestselling author from Boston, Frances Parkinson Keyes (1885-1970). Keyes spent her adult life in New Hampshire, DC, and New Orleans, as well as traveling for research but they had a lot in common. Both were Republicans, educated in Boston, married prominent members of society, and became bestselling authors.

Did you ever come across Emilie Loring's books?  If so, did you have a favorite?  I remember particularly enjoying Love Came Laughing By, which starts on a train and takes place in Washington, DC.  The novels are now available as ebooks and Bender's book can be ordered from her website or your favorite bookstore.

Source: I came across Bender's blog several years ago and followed her progress with this book.  Thank you to the author for an advanced reading copy.