Women You've Never Heard Of - Part 2

Margaret Collier Graham

1850-1910

"If any good results to a man from believing a lie, it certainly comes from the honesty of his belief."

"People need joy quite as much as clothing. Some of them need it far more."

"The mind of the most logical thinker goes so easily from one point to another that it is not hard to mistake motion for progress."

This post is not just a follow-up to the earlier one about women you've never heard of. It's also a follow-up to the much earlier post about the joys of discovering writers available in the e-format who would otherwise have remained completely unknown to you.

Amazon has four Margaret Collier Graham books available for kindle.  Two of them are collections of stories, Stories of the Foot-hills, and The Wizard's Daughter, both of which are free. A third, The Face of the Poor, is I think a single short (or short-ish) story for $2.99. And the fourth, for $3.99, is Gifts and Givers: A Sermon for All Seasons, about which I know nothing.

Oddly enough, there is no Wikipedia page for Margaret Collier Graham.  What information I have found comes from Wikipedia entries for the cities of Wildomar and Lake Elsinore, California, from a website for OAC, the Online Archive of California (The title of the webpage I found is called: "Finding Aid for the Margaret Collier Graham papers, 1877-1913."), and from an August 2010 article in the Riverside Press-Enterprise.

There was a real estate boom in Southern California in the 1880s, and it was still possible to buy an area of land and start a town. Of course it was easier, and the town more likely to be successful, if you made sure the land you bought was next to a railroad.

That is what WILliam Collier, DOnald Graham and MARgaret Collier Graham did in 1883-85, and the towns they created were Wildomar (Wil-Do-Mar) and Lake Elsinore, both in Riverside County. Margaret is credited with selecting the name Elsinore, from the name of the castle in Hamlet. Margaret was the sister of William Collier and the wife of Donald Graham.

The information about her life is pretty scanty. She was born somewhere in Iowa, attended Monmouth College in Illinois, married a classmate, Donald Graham, in 1873 and moved to California in 1876. The Blue Book of Iowa Women, from the obviously pre-feminist days of 1914, in an entry for a Mrs. George W. Deleplaine of Keokuk, says "Margaret Collier Graham of literary fame is a cousin, their fathers being brothers." The entry gives details of various families of Colliers in the Keokuk area going back to the 1850s, so their is a good chance that is where Margaret was from. I can't find any indication that Keokuk is proud enough of that fact to boast about it, however.

The Grahams apparently were among the earliest settlers of Pasadena. Later, in 1887, after the creation of Wildomar and Lake Elsinore, they are said to have built their dream home in the city of South Pasadena in 1887. The house, called Wyngate, still exists as a historic landmark. Donald was the first mayor of South Pasadena.

After Donald's death in 1890, Margaret began making a name for herself publishing stories of California life. She had been a teacher and had already published stories in newspapers, but apparently after her husband died, she focused more on her writing. But she is also said to have continued managing all of his business ventures. Her stories were published in various California and national literary magazines, as well as the Atlantic Monthly. They were also collected and published by Houghton-Mifflin in a couple of books (the two free ones listed above).


She is said to have been active in the women's suffrage movement and to have been instrumental in getting an opera house built in South Pasadena.

I just finished one of Graham's stories called "The Withrow Water Right" and am thrilled with my discovery of this woman. There is a Catheresque quality to the story.  Mostly that is because of the respect the author has for the dignity of the poor pioneer family, but it is also because the author's ear for dialect seems so perfect. I'm going to continue right on with the next story, "Alex Randall's Conversion," the title of which reminds me again of Cather - "Eric Hermannson's Soul."

Any book that Amazon has for free is obviously a public domain book, frequently from the Gutenberg Project, and would be available I'm sure on other e-readers. If you're looking for something to read, the price is right.

Finally, I think I'll give you a few quotes from the story I just finished to tease you.
  

"Then the two young creatures went out into the lighted streets, laughing and clinging to each other in the sweet, selfish happiness that is the preface to so large a part of the world's misery."

Regarding dogs:

"...looking up with that vaguely expectant air which even a long life of disappointment fails to erase from the canine countenance."

"The hounds followed, dejected, but hopeful, as became believers in special providence."