The Strength of the Hills

by Elswyth Thane

Book by Elswyth Thane

Genres: Nonfiction

219 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 1950

About the author

Thane is most famous for her "Williamsburg" series of historical fiction. The books cover several generations of a single family from the American Revolutionary War up to World War II. The action moves from Williamsburg in later books to England, New York City and Richmond, Virginia.

Reviews

[Rebekah Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightful book! Having known nothing about Elswyth Thane except that she wrote some books (which I now want to read), I was pleased to become acquainted with her through this book.
It was fun to read about the old Vermont farm she and her husband purchased, all the work that went into it, and yet, there was more than that. It was full of life. I almost felt like I was sitting in her home, or going with her about the farm as she told me stories. And Che-Wee sounded so charming.
The only part that because a little slow for me was the instructions about how to take care of a bird if you should get one. The rest of it was fascinating. Her paragraph about the criticism she received to the "unrealistic happy endings" of her stories and her objections to their objections was priceless! And I smiled when she mentioned that she had so many books published and she wondered how she got them written.
Altogether this was a lovely read and I enjoyed it.

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forties-era account of the author bringing a dilapidated Vermont farm back to production. Interesting information about maple sugaring and wildlife. Sweet story about adopted bird Chee-Wee. Delightful.

[Eilonwy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of my once-large collection of books about moving out to the New England countryside and fixing up an old house, this is the one I kept. That's a real biography subgenre of the 1950s, to the point that Thane remarks upon it early in the book.

Elswyth Thane and her explorer husband, William Beebe, bought a ramshackle farmhouse in Vermont and fixed it up as a country home. It was much more her home than his, and she got so into it that, during the period of the story, she got the place going as a working farm, with maple-sugar tapping and livestock and the whole nine yards. The book goes through how all that happened, with the understated humor that characterizes Thane's mature style.

This book is why I know how maple sugaring works. I could have looked it up online, I suppose, but Thane makes it an adventure. I can feel the chilly Vermont spring on my skin when she tells about going through the snowy woods, putting out barrels to catch the sap.

Being Thane, she chatters about whatever comes into her head, so she goes straight from bee-keeping to her opinions on libraries (she doesn't like card catalogs). There is a good deal about canaries, which she is crazy about (and apparently carried on vast fan correspondence about).

It's a lovely slice of life (and scope creep -- they just keep fixing stuff up), most particularly for a small moment of insight into why the house got bought. A lot of these books go on, in a satiric way, about lord-of-the-manor fantasies, but that's not what's at work here. Thane's reasoning was that, in the aftermath of WWII, horrible things could happen to the world (and probably would), so she wanted a self-sufficient country retreat that'd be safe.

[Phair · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story of how the author came to acquire a run-down farm property in Vermont as a get-away from their New York City home in the WWII era. What was most interesting was seeing the wartime shortages and the "new" technologies of the period and how the author became more invested in the life of the farm than she had anticipated, improving and expanding haying and maple sugaring operations, planting crops for household consumption and learning to appreciate the abundant wildlife, especially the birds. There was also a lot about the writing process and research for her novels and the writers' trade in general. Numerous line drawings by Helen Tee Van enhanced the experience showing the surroundings, buildings, activities and wildlife of the farm plus a detailed illustrated map of the place. A postscript written for the 1976 edition told briefly how things had changed since the original 1950 publication and summarized her life philosophy and sadness at the way the world had changed.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elswyth Thane wrote her first book in 1926 at age 26 and her last in 1982 at age 82. This remarkable woman traveled the world, was married to William Beebe, a naturalist, and wrote in a number of genres. I read most of her fiction when I was in my thirties. She was a believer in happy endings, as am I.

This little book about reclaiming a derelict farm in Vermont during World War II after their "summer home" in the Bahamas became a military site, was a picture of a life that is long gone from the American scene. I thoroughly enjoyed being taken back, seeing the pluck and ingenuity of those who worked her farm, which she insisted was not a farm because they had no livestock. However they did have haying, syrup making, honey and eventually chickens. A great sadness for me was the weeding of her wonderful fiction by the idiots who took over the Jackson Madison County Library.

[Melanie Rightmyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but only because I love the author. If you are not a devoted fan of Elswyth this book would not hold much interest for you. The book is a glimpse into her life during a period of time when she spent a lot of time and energy in bringing life back to the farm she had purchased. She gives some details about the improvements made to the house, fixing up the barn, harvesting sap to make maple syrup, and more. There is a lot written about her pet bird and of other birds she rescued. She does reference some of the research she was doing for books she was writing. She also has some fascinating glimpses into the research she was able to do at some incredible libraries.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thane was all over the place in this book, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.