“You probably thought you were the only one who loved Maud Hart Lovelace,” said Diane Gonzales, a social worker and the president of the Greater Chicago Chapter of the Betsy-Tacy Society. She smiled at scores of women who’d come from miles around, women of all ages and walks of life, and at little girls in pigtails and pinafores–or ponytails and jeans. They were at the Chicago Historical Society to celebrate what would have been Lovelace’s 101st birthday.
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There were little chocolate men that everyone could help themselves to, just like the ones Betsy and Tacy used to buy at Mrs. Chubbock’s store. And two women dressed up like cats did a cat dance, just like Betsy and Tacy used to do. There were Betsy-Tacy souvenirs. There was birthday cake.
Two grown-up sisters walked by with big dazed smiles. Sharla Whalen of Naperville, Lovelace’s biographer, explained that the sisters’ mother–whose name is Betsy and who was a big Betsy-Tacy fan while growing up–married a guy named Joe (their father) just like Betsy did in the tenth book, Betsy’s Wedding. “The fact that his name was Joe really influenced her decision to marry him,” said Whalen, who wrote to Lovelace when she was 14 and offered to write her biography, “but she never wrote back.”
Rigney said Betsy-Tacy devotees have gone through the books, printing up the lyrics to the songs mentioned and compiling recipes for all the foods mentioned. They collect the plants named. They go on vigils in the streets of Mankato. They advertise to find each other. “You don’t find people doing this kind of thing for the Humane Society” said Rigney.
