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Betsy's Wedding

After LL's post about childhood books where she mentioned the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, I became obsessed with rereading the Betsy books. I just finished all ten of them, plus "Carney's House Party" and "Emily of Deep Valley," and loved reading them again -- until the end.

Major spoiler alert coming up.

You can see it coming. It's 1914, and for the last two books people have been assuring each other, "There could never be another war." But unlike the rest of the Betsy-Tacy books, which leave you with a smile on your face, "Betsy's Wedding" ends with all the young men (including Mr. Betsy) marching off to fight the Great War. They're all so excited and determined -- "exhilarated," to use Lovelace's word -- and proud of serving their country. Joe heads to officer training, assuring Betsy that they'll start a family the moment his tour of duty is through. They rent their little house and Betsy moves in with her parents. Tib's new husband is going to be a fighter pilot. The book ends on an optimistic note, but you can't help picturing what comes next. I'm sure when I last read this book, probably around age 12, I imagined that Betsy's life went on just as she had planned it. But this time, the ending seemed tragic and uncertain.

The Betsy-Tacy books are reported to be heavily autobiographical. Maud Hart Lovelace's husband did go off to fight in the war, and then came back to her in one piece. I guess I can imagine that the same happened to Betsy, but I wish I had the comfort of one more story telling me that everything turned out fine.

Full post as published by Magic Cookie on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).