INA'S READING RECOMMENDATIONS

Grandma Ina was an avid reader. My dad told me that she had a photographic memory and remembered almost everything she read. Whether or not that was true, she enjoyed books and magazines throughout her life. She didn’t read just for pleasure -- that is, her interests weren’t frivolous. She enjoyed keeping up with what was going on in the world and reading was the main avenue.

“We do enjoy our evening’s reading,” Ina wrote to Vance in 1935. “We have a lot of Geographics to read – also Collier’s, the Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, three Copper monthlies, Pathfinder, Daily Chronicle, Clearwater Tribune, and M.W.A. monthly. Also Christian Herald.”

In 1935, the Dobson family was just discovering ‘Reader’s Digest.’ Apparently at that time the Digest didn’t carry advertisements. Here’s what Ina said in thanking Vance for the subscription he provided as a Christmas gift: “I’m so tired of all the magazine advertising that that alone makes the ‘Digest’ a treasure. Don’t you get tired of looking at pictures of blasé men and wanton women, whose only idea is to look ‘smart’ and show their clothes to the store models looking on and offering a cigarette?” Though the phrasing seems a little odd, we get the idea: Ina disapproves of current trends and products in advertising.

Occasionally Ina mentions specific books. “I want you to read The Conquest of Fear,” she says to Vance. “I liked it so much and found help and instruction in it and it was amusing, too, in spots. You’ll want to keep it when you’ve read it. The author tries to keep free from religion in the way that he explains; of course, it is psychological, too.”

Ina received several books for Christmas 1934. “One book is Cross Road, a story of Arabian adventures, fascinating but harsh and cruel. It is by Joseph Kessell – never read anything by him before. The other is The Coming of the Lord by Sarah Gertrude Millin – never heard of her before. The story is laid in South Africa and concerns a religious sect. I have only just begun it.”

Books come and books go. And I admit it -- I don’t keep up with my own generation’s literature let alone that of previous decades. But I found this fascinating – a quote from 1936: “Have you read the ‘Jalna books’ by Mazo de la Roche? They are very popular and entertaining. I’m reading the second one now. Jalna took the $10,000 Atlantic Monthly prize in ’27 against 11,000 others.”

I had never heard of the Jalna series, but an online search confirmed what Ina says and from our perspective some 75 years later, Jalna is revealed as a 16-novel saga about the Whiteoak family. The books were written over 30 years, covering a time period of 1854 to 1954. They were not written in sequential order and each is an independent story. In the mid-30s there was a movie, Jalna, which I have never seen but apparently it appears from time to time on TCM. I’ll watch for it now. Radio and television productions have also been based on the series. Where have I been? I’m anxious to see if I can find these books at the local library.

Speaking of the library, aside from gifts, I don’t know where Ina got her reading material. I don’t think there was a library in Orofino that early. I’m sure the families at Gilbert shared their reading materials. And apparently Ina exchanged books with her sisters in Drain. “Tell Frank I’m reading his book,” she wrote to Mabel in 1934, “but can’t go fast in it and am much interested. No hurry about The Christ of the Indian Road. Read and get the good of it.” KW

[This studio photo of Ina was taken in 1940. Lucky to have it.]