The meadow is latticed now with the pattern of dark branches and the great timeless trees lift intricate patterns against a still sky. The color of winter is pure and lovely: the long, darkly blue shadows, the purple stalks of the briery bushes, the glistening white of clean snow, the pale amber of shell ice where the little brooks walk in summer. I'm deeply attracted to writing about the seasons, and as long as I can remember it has been the particular sharp contrast of American seasons - as exemplified by New England's natural calendar - which I find most romantic and appealing. I did get a sense of some of Taber's concerns and tastes, though and a suggestion of what comprises her moral universe (and by that I mean the values that she esteems, and writes about).Īll of these pieces are rooted in the seasons and routines of her 1600s farmhouse in Connecticut named Stillmeadow. It's lovely in its way, but it feels unsatisfying in the way that an abridged work is nearly always unsatisfying. This collection of short writings - all of them taken from previously published works - is my first taste of Gladys Taber's writing. She died on Main Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts at the age of 80. Gladys Taber had divorced her husband in 1946 and he later passed away in October 1964. Her final book, published posthumously, was Still Cove Journal (Lippincott, 1981). While a resident of Orleans, Taber contributed “Still Cove Sketches” to the Cape Cod Oracle. Having spent some summers on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, she decided to relocate to the town of Orleans where she would live out the remainder of her days. In 1960, her companion, Eleanor, died and Taber decided to abandon life at Stillmeadow. In 1959, she moved from Ladies’ Home Journal to Family Circle, contributing the “Butternut Wisdom” column until her retirement in 1967. She published more than 20 books related to Stillmeadow, including several cookbooks.
#GLADYS TABER AND ELEANORSANFORD MAYER AT WELLESLEY COLLEGE SERIES#
Beginning with Harvest at Stillmeadow (Little, Brown, 1940), Taber wrote a series of books about her simple life in New England that possessed homespun wisdom dolled out with earthy humor and an appreciation for the small things. In the late 1930s, Taber joined the staff of the Ladies’ Home Journal and began to contribute the column “Diary of Domesticity.”īy this time, she had separated from her husband and was living at Stillmeadow, a farmhouse built in 1690 in Southbury, Connecticut, sharing the house with Eleanor Sanford Mayer, a childhood friend who was often mistakenly identified as her sister. She went on to write several other novels and short story collections, including Tomorrow May Be Fair ( Coward, 1935), A Star to Steer By (Macrae, 1938) and This Is for Always (Macrae, 1938). Taber won attention for her first humorous novel, Late Climbs the Sun (Coward, 1934). She began her literary career with a play, Lady of the Moon (Penn), in 1928, and followed with a book of verse, Lyonesse (Bozart) in 1929. Taber taught English at Lawrence College, Randolph Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, Virginia, and at Columbia University, where she did postgraduate studies. The following year, she married Frank Albion Taber, Jr., giving birth to their daughter on July 7, 1923. She returned to her hometown and earned a master’s in 1921 from Lawrence College, where her father was on faculty.
Gladys graduated from Appleton High School and enrolled at Wellesley College, receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1920. During her childhood, she moved frequently as her father accepted various teaching posts until they finally settled in Appleton, Wisconsin. An older sister, Majel, had died at the age of six months while a younger brother Walter died at 15 months. Her parents were Rufus Mather Bagg, who could trace his ancestry back to Cotton Mather, and the former Grace Sibyl Raybold.
A prolific author whose output includes plays, essays, memoirs and fiction, Gladys Taber (1899 – 1980) is perhaps best recalled for a series of books and columns about her life at Stillmeadow, a 17th-century farmhouse in Southbury, Connecticut.īorn Gladys Bagg on Apin Colorado Springs, Colorado, she was the middle child and only one to survive to adulthood.
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