Stella Walthall Patterson (October 14, 1866 - December 23, 1955), orphaned at seven, led a life of adventure and accomplishments as a teacher, artist, pianist, wife, mother, adventurer, and above all a writer and storyteller. She attended Mills College in Oakland, California, whose president later said Mrs. Patterson is the closest thing to a feminine Thoreau that this country has produced. She also went to Paris to study painting. At age 80, after being told by her doctor she had young legs, she vowed to spend one full year on her remote mining claim near Happy Camp, California for solitude to write. Instead, she met interesting small-town characters and faced the challenges of wildland living along the Klamath River in the Siskiyou Mountains-the story she tells humorously in Dear Mad'm.
1. "Dear Mad'm by Stella Patterson is simply delightful."This is a
story of an 80-year-old woman who leaves her San Francisco comfort
and stays in a rustic cabin on a mining claim near Happy Camp in
the Siskiyou Mountains. Her adventures are heartwarming. Her
strength and endurance are admirable. And her courage and frankness
are gratifying....Here is a woman and senior citizen who proves to
the world and her family that she can still be needed and that she
can still live her own life....Young and old alike will enjoy this
book. I recommend it as reading for all age groups, it is simply
260 pages of good, clean fun." (Auburn Journal Sunday Magazine,
February 20, 1983)
2. "In the 1940s at the age of 80, the author abandoned her
comfortable life in San Francisco and moved into a cabin in the
Siskiyou Mountains of Northern California....The challenges that
awaited her in this rural environment reawakened her basic needs
and priorities. Life alone in a remote cabin meant taking chances,
but there were wonderful compensations as well....The author's
daily world, her unusual zest for living, her jaunty humor and
fresh observations, are detailed with clarity and directness, Dear
Mad'm is a book you will have a hard time putting down, and when
finished, it will leave you with a sense of having shared in the
adventures of a remarkable old friend." (F.F. Tilden, Grand Times,
Feb./March 1996)
Ask a Question About this Product More... |