New Friends in Old Chester

TitleNew Friends in Old Chester
Year of Publication1924
Publication TypeShort Stories
Number of Pages or Episodes271 p.
LanguageEnglish
AuthorsDeland, Margaret
PublisherHarper & Brothers
CityNew York
Keywordsadoption; Black Americans; ministers; Protestants
Abstract

Miss Lydia Sampson adopts a boy who stays loyal to her when his birth parents attempt to regain custody.

Notes

North Side is referred to as Allegheny City, as it was then known. Manchester is disguised as Old Chester.

Author Biography

Margaret Deland (1857-1945) was born Margaretta Wade Campbell to Allegheny City, Allegheny County clothing merchants. Her mother died after childbirth and her father died shortly thereafter, so Deland's mother's sister raised her in Manchester, then a borough in Allegheny County. Deland attended boarding school in New York and studied art at Cooper Union. She married Lorin Fuller Deland, Harvard's football coach. Maggie, as she was called, had a deep interest in women's issues and over the years she opened her home to over 60 unwed mothers and their babies. She was a friend to Willa Cather. For magazines, especially Harper's Weekly and The Atlantic Monthly, she published dozens of short stories, most based on her early years in Maple Grove and Manchester. She died in Boston.

Time

1870s