Hawthorne, Hildegarde

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HAWTHORNE, Hildegarde

Born 25 September 1871, New York, New York; died 11 December 1952, Ridgefield, Connecticut

Daughter of Julian and Mary Amelung Hawthorne; married John M. Oskison, 1920

Granddaughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hildegarde Hawthorne was the first of nine children and the one who seemed most clearly destined to inherit the family impulse to earn literary recognition. She had little formal education—an occasional tutor or term of school as the family moved from New York to Dresden to England to Long Island to Jamaica during her childhood. Spirited and apt, Hawthorne capitalized on these moves by putting the family experiences into several of her numerous books. For example, Makeshift Farm (1925) describes their life on Long Island, and Island Farm (1926) tells of their Jamaica experiences.

During World War I, Hawthorne volunteered for war work in France for the YWCA and the Red Cross, sending back to the New York Times and the Herald Tribune accounts of her observations of Paris under siege. She was a prolific book reviewer for both newspapers from 1917 to 1925. After her marriage, Hawthorne lived in California for many years and became an expert hiker and camper, seeking out remote spots of California wilderness and making friends with Natvie Americans and backwoodsmen. These experiences provided background for further literary ventures; she wrote several western novels and three books on California.

Hawthorne's youthful productions were published in St. Nicholas magazine. She established herself as a serious writer with "A Legend of Sonora," a story appearing in Harper's magazine when she was twenty. Throughout her life she published many poems, stories, articles, and book reviews, and more than 40 books.

Hawthorne's numerous biographies of famous men—including one of her grandfather, Romantic Rebel: The Life of Hawthorne (1932)—were imaginatively written with interesting dialogue designed to appeal to the adolescent audiences for whom they were published. She was effective in this genre, whether she wrote of Hawthorne and his friends Longfellow, Emerson, and Holmes, or of Western explorers such as Frémont, or of figures from the American Revolution such as Patrick Henry and Thomas Paine. She was clever at interweaving biographical data and conversation, which she no doubt based on research in letters and journals.

Her six western novels, pitched to her usual adolescent reader, are in the style of Zane Grey narratives. Open Range (1932), a typical example, is filled with western novel clichés, idealizing the life of her cowboy hero, Slim, and his noble horse, Feathers. In contrast to Hawthorne's informative and well-researched biographies, these westerns are superficial and hackneyed.

The travelogues, such as Corsica (1926), are highly descriptive, personal accounts of Hawthorne's travels. Of her histories, California's Missions (1942) is a very interesting and directly related account of those missions and the men who founded them. It is a well-written work that still deserves to be read.

Hawthorne's simple, straightforward, and unaffected style gave her work a popular appeal. Both her biographies and her histories show evidence of greater artistic potential than she ever actually realized.

Other Works:

A Country Interlude (1904). Poems (1904). Essays (1907). The Lure of the Garden (1911). A Peep at New York (1911). Old Seaport Towns of New England (1916). Girls in Bookland (1917). Rambles Through College Towns (1917). Maybe True Stories (1926). Deedah's Wonderful Year (1927). Mystery at Star C. Ranch (1929). Mystery of Navajo Canyon (1931). Street of Rancho del Sol (1931). Wheels Toward the West (1931). Riders of the Royal Road (1932). Lone Rider (1933). Tabitha of Lonely House (1934). Enos Mills of the Rockies (with E. B. Mills, 1935). Youth's Captain: The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1935). On the Golden Trail (1936). Poet of Craigie House: The Life of Longfellow (1936). Phantom King: The Life of Napoleon's Son (1937). Rising Thunder: The Life of Jack Jouett (1937). The Happy Autocrat: A Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1938). The Miniature's Secret (1938). Romantic Cities of California (1939). Concord's Happy Rebel: The Life of H. D. Thoreau (1940). No Road Too Long (1940). Williamsburg, Old and New (1941). The Long Adventure: Churchill's Life (1942). Ox-Team Miracle: The Life of Alexander Majors (1942). Matthew Fontaine Maury, Trail Maker of the Seas (1943). Give Me Liberty: The Story of Patrick Henry (1945). Westward the Course: The Story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1946). Born to Adventure: The Story of John Charles Frémont (1947). His Country Was a World: The Life of Thomas Paine (1949).