Gladys Bagg Taber (1899-1980) was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She was well educated, having earned her bachelor’s degree at Wellesley College and her Masters at Lawrence College, in 1921. Gladys went on to teach English at Lawrence, at Randolph-Macon, and at Columbia University until 1926. Her marriage to Frank Taber produced a daughter, Constance, in 1923. Frank was also a college professor (of music) and the family settled in New York City.
Raising a child (and a dog) in a small apartment in the city was challenging. Gladys was helped enormously by the bolstering friendship of her former college roommate and neighbor in the building, Eleanor, who also had kids and dogs. Together they tramped around Manhattan to give the dogs and kids exercise, and eventually dreamed about a weekend escape (a not uncommon idea in the early 20th century) in Connecticut.
Discovering Stillmeadow
Writing had become Gladys’ consuming passion. She was writing for several magazines including the Ladies Home Journal, and newspapers, as well as plays and humorous fiction. Between raising kids and dogs, teaching English to young adults, and writing as much as she possibly could, it is amazing that she found time to search with Eleanor to find the dream property – but finally it seems Stillmeadow found them.
On a very snowy weekend, Eleanor and Gladys were to meet an agent: “The agent had not expected anyone so foolhardy as to look at houses in such weather… We had no key so we crawled up from the cellar.
"Well," said Stillmeadow, "I've been waiting for you. What took you so long?"
There it stood, half-buried in the snow. Built in 1690 or a bit earlier, it had withstood the years. It even had plumbing, and how were we to know it was all cracked?”
Within a few years Eleanor and her children were spending summers and weekends throughout the year at Stillmeadow (in Connecticut), while Gladys was spending as much time there as possible with her family. Gradually, however, Gladys and her daughter moved to Stillmeadow fulltime, and after the death of Eleanor’s husband, she brought her family to Stillmeadow for good as well.
Gladys wouldn’t have wanted to be Martha Stewart at any point in her life, but she had many qualities in common with the lifestyle “diva” Ms. Stewart. She was not only a keen observer of nature, she seemed able to handle just about any domestic problem from training dogs to fixing plumbing, from canning her own vegetables to writing well-loved books about her life on the farm. More importantly, Gladys was a savvy business woman, who managed her own “brand” at a time when few women had their own checking accounts.
Behind the "Official" Bio
That’s the well-known and somewhat “official” biography that most of her loyal readers believed was the entirety of Gladys Taber’s life. However, there is more to the story.
According to her own writing and recent research, Gladys had not married for love but to please her father. Although we don’t know whether there was some love between her and her husband in the early years, matters began to deteriorate when Frank lost his hearing. No longer able to teach, he became withdrawn, perhaps bitter, and focused on his hobby of tin-piercing metal. Thus, Gladys became the breadwinner for the family. Where previously her writing was done for her own pleasure and to augment the family’s income, now it was all that kept the wolf from the door. Living at Stillmeadow may have been much less expensive than in Manhattan, especially sharing the expenses with Eleanor.
Gladys mentions very, very little about her husband (almost nothing in her Stillmeadow books) and most of her readers assumed that he, too, had died [1], but in fact Gladys divorced him in 1946.
Although she had written successful plays and novels, Gladys’ fame grew thanks to her magazine columns. A couple of generations of women eagerly awaited each month’s musings in Ladies Home Journal (late 1930s–1959) and Family Circle magazine (1959-1967), written much like the letters she had been writing to friends since finding Stillmeadow in 1931. Her humor was easily grasped, her recipes and homely advice were down-to-earth, but most importantly her keen observation of the glory of the fields, flowers, trees, animals, sky and weather which marked her days was increasingly appreciated by young women striving to “make do” with kids, curtains, canning, and canines, whether they actually lived in Manhattan, NY, or a cramped trailer park in Manhattan, KS.
Remembering Gladys Taber
Eleanor (named “Jill” in the books) passed away in 1960. Some years before, they had vacationed on Cape Cod, and there Eleanor had found and purchased a small cottage they named Still Cove. It was their vacation home from then on. Even after Eleanor's death, Gladys continued to split her time between the two properties until eventually she gave up Stillmeadow and retreated to Still Cove. She passed away there in 1980.
Her books include Harvest at Stillmeadow (1940), Stillmeadow Seasons (1950), Stillmeadow Daybook, Stillmeadow Kitchen (1947), Stillmeadow Sampler (1959), Gladys Taber’s Stillmeadow Cookbook (1965), The Best of Stillmeadow (1976), and many others. Her fans continue to buy her books, write about her (there are several blogs about her) and she even has a Facebook following.
From Stillmeadow Road (1962, Amereon Ltd.) “"We have an appointment with winter, and we are ready. The wood is stacked with seasoned applewood and maple, the snow shovel leans at the back door, the shelves are jammed with supplies. …Snow piles up against the windowpanes, sifts under the ancient sills, makes heaps of powdered pearl on the ancient oak floors. But the house is snug in the twilight of the snow and we sit by the fire and toast our toes feeling there is much to be said for winter after all."
Resources
[1] Country Chronicle (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1974) pg. 18 "And later, at the time we lost our husbands...Stillmeadow became a refuge..."
Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center entry on Gladys Taber
Welcome to Stillmeadow (blog)
A Book Every Six Days (blog with book reviews)
The Common Room: A Gladys Taber Primer (blog)
Stillmeadow Daybook (J. B. Lippincott, 1955)
Barbara Bell - Suite101 has been my home away from home for over 12 years. I began as a writer covering antiques, collectibles and interior decorating, ...
