I may be stretching the definition of “garden writing” by including a poet who, to my knowledge, never wrote a book or article about gardening, but let me introduce her to you before you decide whether or not she belongs on my list.
I discovered Elizabeth-Ellen Long through a quote that my friend Dee Nash found for us to use on our weekly podcast, The Gardenangelists. The quote was a poem called These I’ve Loved.
These l've loved since I was little:
Wood to build with or to whittle,
Wind in the grass and falling rain,
First leaves along an April lane;
Yellow flowers, cloudy weather, River-bottom smell, old leather,
Fields newly plowed, young corn in rows,
Back country roads and cawing crows,
Stone walls with stiles going over,
Daisies, Queen Anne's Lace, and clover
Night tunes of crickets, frog songs, too,
Starched cotton cloth, the color blue,
Bells that ring from white church steeple,
Friendly dogs and friendly people.
Elizabeth-Ellen Long
When I searched for information about Elizabeth-Ellen, the internet seemed to not know too much about her. So let’s teach it about her now!
Her Biography
I looked up information on Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com as I usually do and then I found a book she published and “privately printed” in 1948 called These I’ve Loved. I purchased a copy which still had the dust jacket, and from that, I’ll give you her biography as she wrote it for the front and back flaps:
“Elizabeth-Ellen Long lives with her husband, George F. Tibbals, and their two children, John-Michael and Jane-Ellen, in Claremont, California. For seventeen years she has been a steady contributor to such publications as The Ladies’ Home Journal, Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Woman’s World, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, American Girl, Child Life, Jack and ill, American Childhood, Radio Mirror, Sunset, Westways and others, as well as the following British magazines, Home Notes, Woman and Beauty, Ladies’ Journal, Pictorial and Mother and Home.
Miss Long has some 500 published poems to her credit. Many of these have also appeared in national anthologies, while others, by special permission, have been reprinted in a variety of books including school texts, books on child psychology, religion and literature. Fifteen of her poems have been set to music by composers in this country and abroad. Many others have been used in well-known radio programs such as those of Ted Malone and Johnny Murray. Eight poems have been translated into Braille by the New York Society for Blind Children in New York City for use in their publications.
Elizabeth-Ellen Long was born in Troy, New York, but came to Pomona, California at the age of two with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Williard Anderson Long, Sr. Here she lived and attended the public schools from kindergarten through high school. In 1931 she graduated with the first class from Scripps College, and her close friendship with one of her professors, Dr. Henry Purmount Eames, dates from this period. Dr. Eames is most qualified to write the Foreword for These I’ve Loved, since he has watched her career as a poet with great interest over the years.
Of these 94 poems, many have appeared in national publications, but this is Elizabeth-Ellen Long’s first book of poetry.”
I’ll add to her biography that she was born in 1908 and died in 1989.
I also discovered her address via a newspaper article and looked it up. It’s a lovely one-story home built in 1948 with four bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Native American Interest
I also found a profile about Elizabeth-Ellen in the Progress-Bulletin, Pomona, CA, Feb. 27, 1971, that noted that she and her husband liked to travel, especially to visit several different Native American reservations. And I quote:
“She and her husband, George, have traveled throughout the United States, particularly to the Hopi reservations in Arizona and the Navajo sites in Arizona and New Mexico and Mexico, examining spots of interest and participating in the activities of Indian life.”
and
“The visits have additional purposes of taking clothing, toys and knick knacks to poor children and adults; and providing settings for articles writing for the “Monitor” and numerous other papers.”
Award-Winning
I also found some articles about Elizabeth-Ellen winning some state poetry contests.
Another article mentioned she had won prizes for her poetry for three years in a row.
Her Thoughts on Writing Poetry
In the same profile that included information about her travels, Elizabeth-Ellen provided some insight into her thoughts about writing poetry.
“I don’t begin to write to deal with a specific subject. It comes when I’m working or talking with others. Sometimes an entire poem will come into your mind and can be written without any revision. You store up in your mind impressions and may not use them for years. Then something will trigger a creative thought.”
According to the article,
“Often she feels handicapped because her character demands that she do things in an organized, systematic manner. She is a constant inquirer, yet precise and definite in her search for new knowledge and information. Her English literature background influences her proper use of words and expressions, her denial “that usage makes it acceptable.””
On being a poet, she is quoted,
“I don’t really flatter myself to think I’m a poet. I write verse. Some things I’ve done, a very few, qualify as real poems, but most are verse… There’s a need for verse because not everyone is going to read or understand poetry… In painting you might not be a Leonardo de Vinci or Michelangelo, but if you enjoy doing it and someone flatters you by enjoying it, then that’s all you need, isn’t it?”
Her Book
Her one book, as far as I know, is These I’ve Loved (1948), and I have a copy.
All of the poems in the book have nature themes of some kind, many relate to farming, and some relate to gardening, including Death of an Old Gardener.
He loved you, Earth,
Be kind to him
Who crooked-backed
And bent of limb
Comes now at last
To share your bed,
His youth long gone,
His vigor fled,
He loved you, Earth,
He never knew
That there was aught
But good in you,
With shrub and vine,
With flowers and trees
He proved his love,
Be kind now, please!
For that poem alone, I’m going to assume that Elizabeth-Ellen was certainly acquainted with gardening—enough to write poetry about it—and that is why I’ve decided to include her as a Lost Lady of Garden Writing.
Do you know of other women authors of gardening books that I should research as Lost Ladies of Garden Writing? Send them my way via a comment or email!
And if you find these articles interesting and think others will, too, please share them and/or subscribe.
I’ll return with the next Lost Lady of Garden Writing article in two weeks. In the meantime, you can find me in several places: my website and blog, The Gardenangelists podcast, and my weekly newsletter, In the Garden With Carol.
“…but if you enjoy doing it and someone flatters you by enjoying it, then that’s all you need, isn’t it?” ~ Elizabeth-Ellen Long
Do you know if her contributions to all those magazines were primarily her poems, or did she write articles as well?