The Egg and I - Betty MacDonald

How many of you have read The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald, a Northwest writer? Did you know MacDonald was a Washington State resident? In fact, some of her books were written on a farm on Vashon Island which is now The Betty MacDonald Farm Bed and Breakfast (B&B) owned by Judith Lawrence. The B&B Library still has MacDonald memorabilia if you're interested in a visit.

Betty was a prolific Washington State writer who weathered tuberculosis (TB) and a divorce throughout her writing career. Her short life, 1908-1958, was full but riddled with challenges. She died at 49 from cancer, but not without leaving a legacy for writers. She made you laugh reading about her life on the chicken ranch and she made you pensive reading about TB in a time when folks didn't talk about it much.

Besides The Egg and I some of her other books are:

· The Plague and I (about tuberculosis)

· Anybody Can Do Anything

· Onions in the Stew (about her time on Vashon Island)

· Nancy and Plum and

· The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series.

I remember reading The Plague and I. We were avid readers in our house with a bookcase of books from library sales. The Plague and I was one of those books. As a young girl in a family that didn't talk much about things like TB, it was a way to learn about it, a disease that also plagued my cousin. This was in the 1950's. Literature was not free and open like it is today. Of course, in my dramatic pre-teens I imagined what it would be like to have TB. (I should have been an actress, the scenarios I dreamed up - but alas, I chose another field - writing.)

This excerpt from The Plague and I will give you an idea of how "unfunny" TB is. Pretty heavy reading for a kid, right? Quite a morbid shot-in-the-arm after the humorous The Egg and I.

Anyway, back to Betty. She garnered a following in the 40's and 50's that gave her a $1 million best seller, The Egg and I. At the time she wrote The Egg and I she raised chickens on a farm at Chimacum, Washington, with her first husband, Robert Heskett - the marriage was a short one. She later married Don MacDonald and The Egg and I became a movie starring Claudette Colbert and Fred McMurray. It was the catalyst for Ma and Pa Kettle movies.

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