For my February 2022 book review, I decided to read The House Without Windows by Barbara Newhall Follett. It’s an exceptional book I wish I had read as a child.
The story behind the book is what drew me to it. Barbara was born in 1914 in Hanover, New Hampshire. Her father worked for Alfred Knopf.
As a four-year-old, she would stand outside her father’s study listening to his typewriter. She was fascinated by how words seemed to flow from the brain through the typewriter and onto the page to become wonderful stories.
One night she sneaked into her father’s study and after considerable effort, she managed to lug his typewriter up to her bedroom. Her father let her keep it and Barbara spent many happy hours writing.
Barbara began authoring this book at the age of eight. It was to be a gift to her mother, not for her mother’s birthday, but for Barbara’s ninth birthday. Barbara always gave her mother a gift in appreciation for giving her life. She locked herself in her room for hours at a time working on her mother’s surprise. She missed her deadline after being sidelined by an illness for several weeks, but shortly after her ninth birthday, Barbara completed her task. She planned to make copies to share with friends. A few days later, a fire broke out in the family’s kitchen while they were sleeping. The family managed to get out safely, but most of their belongings including Barbara’s manuscript were lost.
Barbara started again trying to exactly recreate her story. It was a stressful time for her until she decided to let go of the idea of making an exact copy of her story and try for a better one. At twelve years-old she completed her story and presented it to her mother. Her father was so impressed he took it to work with him. The publisher decided to print 2500 copies of her manuscript. At twelve Barbara became a published author. All 2500 copies sold out two weeks before the publication date. The book went on to become a bestseller and Barbara officially became a child prodigy.
Her story is a fantasy about a young girl named Eepersip who runs away from home to become one with nature. Eepersip was from a happy loving home, but she always felt the call of the wild and longed to live in harmony with nature. She felt imprisoned by walls and ceilings. She was not content to spend her days staring through glass windows and trying to imagine the feel of the wind through her hair or smell the delicate scent of flowers and meadow grasses. She wanted to visit the sea and climb the far-off mountain peaks just visible from her garden.
Eepersip experiences her first night in the meadow just as any child would. She wraps herself in a blanket of nature, drinks from a fresh stream and eats roots and berries without the fear of the elements or wild animals. She instinctively knows what is safe to eat. The woodland animals nestle beside her offering her warmth and companionship. She makes friends with several deer and a chipmunk she calls “Chippy” becomes her constant companion. When Chippy is captured, Eepersip rescues him and liberates a tiny white kitten who also becomes her companion. She dances with birds, butterflies, bees, and fireflies and sheds her mortal clothing in favor of bare feet and a dress of woven ferns.
Eepersip’s parents are devastated when she doesn’t come home. After locating her, they watch to make sure she is safe and wait for her to tire of her adventures and come home on her own. When she doesn’t, they enlist the help of friends and set out to capture her and bring her home. After several comical failures, they manage to bring her home, but Eepersip escapes again. She returns to the meadow but decides to visit the sea and the mountains for more adventures.
It’s a lovely tale written from the perspective of a child – full of hope and wonder and missing the fearful realities we learn as we grow up. I wish I’d read this story when I was a child because I had to force my mind to put away fears about deer ticks and Lyme Disease, hypothermia, frostbite, and carnivorous wild animals. I couldn’t help but feel sad for her parents at times instead of enjoying her freedom and resourcefulness.
I remember reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George when I was eight years old. I used to dream of living in the wilderness like Sam. If you’ve read the book, you know twelve-year-old Sam leaves the tiny New York apartment he shares with his parents and eight siblings to live in his grandfather’s abandoned farm in the Catskills near the town of Delhi. Sam has permission from his father to go there if he lets the people in Delhi know he’ll be staying at the farm, so technically he isn’t really a runaway. He also studies survival skills from books in the New York City Library before he sets out. When he discovers the farmhouse is no longer standing, Sam must find shelter and food on his own. It’s a different scenario because Sam isn’t trying to become one with nature. He’s attempting to carve out a life in harmony with nature. Unlike Eepersip, Sam occasionally interacts with people, and he calls his parents periodically to check in.
What both stories have in common is their characters’ desire for independence and solitude and their love of nature. While Jean Craighead George’s Sam is methodical and logical, Follett’s Eepersip gives her spirit over to the wilderness and trusts it to protect and sustain her.
Barbara Newhall Follett went on to meet and be photographed with many of her literary heroes. She was asked to review Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. She had a fiercely independent spirit and at thirteen she signed up as a “cabin boy” on a ship bound for Novia Scotia to experience the sea firsthand. Her second novel is a pirate story, The Voyage of the Norman D., which was published in 1924 at the age of fourteen. It also received critical acclaim. It seemed Barbara’s life couldn’t get any better, but that same year her father left his family for a younger woman. Barbara continued to write and travel, determined to carry on her life without her beloved father.
During the Great Depression, she and her mother struggled to survive by selling articles they often wrote together. Barbara became a secretary to help make ends meet. She looked forward to escaping to the country on the weekends to camp, hike, and be close to nature. She completed two more manuscripts, The Lost Island and Travels Without a Donkey.
When she was eighteen, Barbara hiked the Appalachian Trail with Nickerson Rogers. They later traveled through Europe together. Barbara kept writing articles and made notes for future manuscripts. In 1934 Barbara and Nickerson married and settled in Brookline, Massachusetts. By this time, Barbara’s manuscripts had fallen out of favor, and she was receiving regular rejection slips for the first time in her life. Barbara tried to fill the void by studying interpretive dance, but she struggled with depression. In 1937, she began to express unhappiness in her marriage, and by 1938, she suspected her husband of infidelity.
According to Nickerson Rogers on December 7, 1939, Barbara left their house after a quarrel with $30 in her pocket. She was never seen again. Rogers waited two weeks to notify the police of her disappearance. Barbara had a habit of running off unexpectedly. He claimed not to have been worried and had fully expected her to return once she calmed down. Since reports of her disappearance were filed under her married name, the media did not know of her disappearance until 1966. In 1952, her mother Helen grew tired of waiting for a break in the case. She insisted the police reinvestigate Nickerson Rogers’ involvement in her daughter’s disappearance. To this day no one has been able to prove or disprove that Barbara was the victim of foul play. A body was never found, and no date of her death has ever been established.
The fate of Barbara Newhall Follet Rogers remains a mystery. She simply disappeared without a trace much like her beloved character Eeperslip.
Books by Barbara Newhall Follett:
The House Without Windows (1927)
The Voyage of the Norman D. (1928)
Lost Island (Plus Three Stories and an Afterword) (2020)
You may also want to read Barbara Newhall Follet: A Life in Letters (2015) edited by Stefan Cooke
Photo credits:
Photo of Follett: By http://www.farksolia.org/ "The home of Barbara Newhall Follett on the web". Specifically, http://www.farksolia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/portrait-with-beret.jpg. Don't know who is the creator., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34775572
Book cover image - Photo of my own copy of The House Without Windows
Further information about Barbara Newhall Follett can be found at https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/celebrity/vanishing-act
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/archival/collections/ldpd_4078771/