Before Stratemeyer died in 1930, he had provided the outlines for the first four Nancy Drew books to Wirt Benson, The Secret of the Old Clock (1930), The Hidden Staircase (1930), The Bungalow Mystery (1930), and The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930). After his death Harriet Otis Smith, Stratemeyer’s personal secretary, wrote the outline of the fifth book, The Secret at Shadow Ranch (1931), as well as editing that book and the fourth book, The Mystery at Lilac Inn (1930), she is also credited with creating the characters Bess Marvin and George Fayne, cousins and good friends of Nancy Drew. From the sixth book on, the daughters of Stratemeyer, Edna Stratemeyer Squier and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, carried on with the creation of the outlines and editing of the books, until Edna left the Syndicate, and Harriet shouldered the work Edna had done, as well as her own.
Wirt Benson made $125 per book for the first seven Nancy Drews, but Harriet wanted to cut the rate the ghostwriters were getting paid down to $100 per book. At this point Wirt Benson was an experienced writer, having graduated with a degree in English in 1925 from the University of Iowa, and she went on to be the first person to graduate with a Masters in Journalism there in 1927. When Wirt Benson respectfully declined a pay cut, the Syndicate hired Walter Karig to take up the reins. Karig wrote books eight, nine, and 10, and then the Syndicate had Wirt Benson back for books 11 to 25. After another gap in which the books were written by a number of writers, she was asked to write book thirty, and though she was not formally fired as a ghostwriter, she was not asked to write another Nancy Drew after that point.
It is easy to get caught up in the lore of Nancy Drew and the history of her creators, and if the number of times I have info dumped on my husband about this, my special interest, is any indicator, I could go on for days, or at least until my caffeine buzz wears off. But this is a post about Wirt Benson and she also wrote many successful children’s books, 135 in all. She got her start with the Syndicate with the 1927 book Ruth Fielding and Her Great Scenario. Stratemeyer tried Wirt Benson out, as it were, with the well established Ruth Fielding series, and he had her in mind when he pitched the Nancy Drew series to Grosset and Dunlap. At the same time as she was writing the Nancy Drew books, she was also writing Ruth Fielding, Dana Girls, and Honey Bunch books. In the late 1940s, her husband, Asa Wirt*, had a stroke and became ill, suffering a number of debilitating strokes. Meanwhile, Wirt Benson was also caring for their young daughter, Peggy, and working as a reporter. On top of that she had pseudonyms of her own, which is where, in my opinion, she did some of her best writing.
Wirt Benson’s favourite series was the Penny Parker Mystery Stories, and I can see why. Penny is everything I believe Nancy Drew could have been if Wirt Benson had been in complete control of the writing of these books. Penny, the daughter of a newspaper man, often writes articles for her father’s paper. She is an enthusiastic and casual girl who doesn’t take anything too seriously, even when her investigating pitches her into the most dire of circumstances. The more I learn about Wirt Benson, the more I see her in the strong women she wrote. The first book Penny Parker book, Tale of the Witch Doll (1939), begins with Penny doing an expert high-dive. Like the character she created, Wirt Benson was a lauded diver in her youth. As well as being on the competitive swim team at her university, where she took part in relays and diving, she also played on the basketball team, the soccer team, wrote for the school paper, the Daily Iowan. In high school she played baseball, basketball, volleyball, acted in the senior class play, played the xylophone, and outside of school she played the slide trombone in the Ladora Band.
After being enthralled by flying in her youth, in 1964, when she was 59 years old, she got her pilot’s licence. It’s no wonder she wrote young women like Nancy Drew and Ruth Darrow who also flew planes. Suddenly all of her extremely talented heroines don’t seem so far fetched. I have often thought while reading a Nancy Drew, “is there nothing this woman can’t do?” and now I am much more inclined to believe a real live person can be as adventurous, talented, and well rounded as Nancy.
Wirt Benson was talented and clearly had many interests, but writing was her number one objective from an early age. “I always wanted to be a writer from the time I could walk. I had no other thought except that I wanted to write.” She learned to read very early and was soon reading everything she could get her hands on. Her own town of Ladora was too small to have a library, but when possible her father would drop her off at the public library in a nearby town, and there she would spend eight hours at a time reading.
“Writing is a way of life for me,” she said. “It’s like getting up and having breakfast.” She wrote for the Daily Iowan during university, and after graduating she wrote for the Clinton Iowa Herald, in 1944 she started working at the Toledo Blade, when it was the Toledo Times, working there for the next 58 years. On the afternoon of 28 May 2002, she filed what would be her last story. Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson, Millie, as she liked to be called, died around 8 p.m. that evening in hospital. She was 96 years old.
Through writing this I have realised that when I picture Wirt Benson, she is impossibly high above the water, mid-dive, or donning her flying cap, about to take flight. As a little girl, I wanted to be like Nancy Drew when grew up. Now, I aspire to be like Millie.
Happy Birthday Millie.
I want to thank my dear friend Gina (@babsbelovedbooks), without whom my Mildred A. Wirt Benson collection would be almost non-existent. Thanks also to my husband for buying me my first proper vintage Nancy Drew book, and spending way too much money on the Dana Girls edition of my dreams one wedding anniversary.
Many thanks to the literary historians, librarians, journalists, and collectors who have made so much information about dear Millie available. It turns out fans of Nancy Drew make pretty great detectives.
List of references:
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her (2005) by Melanie Rehak
There is a lot of misinformation around Nancy Drew and Mildred A. Wirt Benson out there, I sincerely hope none has crept in here. If there are any inaccuracies they are my own and not the fault of the listed sources.
*Asa Wirt died in 1947. In 1959 she married, George Benson.
If you got something out of this post, please consider subscribing to my blog. You can find the email sign up on the right hand side at the top of this page (on desktop version only), or click on the link here. You will receive a confirmation email in your inbox (or possibly your junk folder). Once you click to confirm your email address you will receive an email notification whenever a new blog post goes up. And, of course, you can unsubscribe at any time. Whether you subscribe or not, I’m thankful you are here.
This blog contains affiliate links for Blackwell’s. As a Blackwell’s Affiliate, I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, if you decide to make a purchase through one of the links on my website. I recommend Blackwell’s because I use them myself. This helps support me in sharing—what I hope is—valuable content. Thank you for your support!
No comments:
Post a Comment