R. J.'s Mother and Some Other People

Deland’s fourth short story collection includes “A Black Drop,” in which Lily, a Southern belle, is engaged to the scion of a Northern abolitionist family. Despite his politics, he leaves Lily when he suspects she may have black ancestry. Lily's question—"Even if I wasn't white, ain't I just the same girl"—goes unanswered.

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.