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Isabel Stewart Way

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Isabel Stewart Way
BornAugust 2, 1904
Muskegon, Michigan, US
DiedSeptember 11, 1978
Los Angeles, California, US
OccupationWriter
EducationJennings Seminary, Albion College
Period1920s–1970s
GenreShort story, novels, pulp romance
Notable worksSeed of the Land (1935)
Notable awardsFirst prize, best story published in The Echo (1927)
SpouseWinfield Scott Way
David J.-P. Bonnard
Charles Heber Clayton
Thomas Barclay Thomson

Isabel E. Stewart Way (August 2, 1904 – September 23, 1978)[1] was an American writer based in Azusa, California. Her first novel was Seed of the Land (1935). She was also a playwright and wrote hundreds of pulp genre stories and novels, especially Westerns and romances.

Early life and education

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Isabel Stewart Way was born in Muskegon, Michigan, the daughter of Harlow Auburn Stewart and Alice Brown Stewart.[2] Her father was a piano salesman.[3] She graduated from Jennings Seminary in Aurora, Illinois, and spent two years at Albion College in Michigan, before she withdrew from school to seek treatment for tuberculosis in warmer states.[2][4][5]

Career

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Way was president of the Monrovia Writers League,[2] and a member of the San Diego Writers' Club.[4] She won the first prize for best story published in The Echo during 1927.[4] In 1930 she reported on Krishnamurti's lectures at the Ojai Star Institute for the Monrovia News-Post.[6] She was named associate editor of Creative World magazine in 1931.[7] She also taught creative writing in Monrovia.[8]

Way was also known as a dancer, actress, and playwright in Southern California.[9] She was in the cast of the first show at the Repertory Theatre in Monrovia in 1931.[10] She wrote a play, La Fiesta, that was performed in Los Angeles.[2][11] She wrote another play with WInifred Davidson.[2] In 1933, she accepted a contract to write radio scripts.[12] Her play The Blossom of Hardcrabble Flats was produced in 1949, with her daughter Eve Bonnard in the cast.[13]

Publications

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Way contributed numerous articles to Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker and other publications. She published short stories in Brief Stories, Young's, Breezy Stories, Chatelaine,[14] New York World, The Echo and others.[2][15] In 1935, her farm novel Seed of the Land (1935)[16][17][18] received strong positive reviews.[19] She wrote many pulp romances with Western themes,[20] including over a hundred stories for Rangeland Romances and Romantic Range, and a detective story for Detective Story.[21] She also wrote pulp romance novels, often with medical themes, in her later years.[22]

  • "Important Things" (1931)[7]
  • "Rainy Day" (1931)[7]
  • Seed of the Land (1935)[18]
  • The Raiders of the Lost Canyon (1937)[23]
  • "The Devil Rides a Black Horse" (1938)[24]
  • "Mountain Fury" (1941, with Ruby Thomson)
  • "Point of Honor" (1943, with Ruby Thomson)[25]
  • "By Kindness of Red" (1950)[26]
  • "The Five Beautiful Smith Sisters" (1953)[14]
  • Nurse in Love (1963)[22]
  • Nurse Christy (1968)[27]
  • Fleur Macabre (about 1968)
  • The House on the Sky High Road (about 1970)
  • Fighting Dr. Diana (1973)
  • Calling Nurse Lorrie

Personal life and legacy

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Way married four times. She married her first husband, fellow writer Winfield Scott Way in 1921, in Florida.[4] Scott Way, who was a founder of both the Pasadena Humane Society and the California Audubon Society, died in 1930.[28] She married again in August 1932, to journalist David Jean-Phillip Bonnard; he was reported dead in Russia in December 1932.[29] She had a daughter, Eve Bonnard.[16][30][31] She married her third husband, Charles Heber Clayton, in 1940.[8] In 1965 she married her fourth husband, Thomas Barclay Thomson, a fellow writer[20] and retired postmaster,[32] and widower of her co-author Ruby LaVerte Thomson.[33] Way died in 1978, at the age of 73, in Los Angeles. Her papers are in the University of Oregon Libraries.[34]

References

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  1. ^ These are the dates on Way's gravestone in Glendora, California, via Ancestry. A birth year of 1904 matches her ages in the censuses for 1930, 1940, and 1950. However, the 1900 and 1910 censuses list Isabel Stewart in the Michigan home of Harlow and Alice Stewart, ages 6 and 16, respectively, indicating instead a birth year around 1894. Her parents were both born in the 1850s, which may make the 1894 birth year more plausible.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Woman Winning Fame as Author Was Born Here". The Muskegon Chronicle. 1929-04-27. p. 13. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "Resident of City Fifty Years Dies". The Muskegon Chronicle. 1927-10-18. p. 11. Retrieved 2025-06-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ a b c d Binheim, Max; Elvin, Charles A (1928). Women of the West; a series of biographical sketches of living eminent women in the eleven western states of the United States of America. p. 92. Retrieved 2017-08-08.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  5. ^ "Miss Way Author of New Novel". Asheville Citizen-Times. 1935-08-02. p. 9. Retrieved 2025-06-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ^ "Writers Going to Institute". Monrovia News-Post. 1930-05-22. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ^ a b c "Isabel Way Associate Editor". Monrovia News-Post. 1931-01-26. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ a b "Isabel Way Married in Las Vegas". Monrovia News-Post. 1940-10-05. p. 3. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ "600 Attend School Program". Monrovia News-Post. 1930-04-24. pp. 1, 8. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Newell, Frances R. (1931-01-09). "Group Organize Little Theatre in Monrovia". Monrovia News-Post. p. 9. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ "Woman Writer Given Honors". The Los Angeles Times. 1929-04-08. p. 13. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Fiction Writers Signed". Broadcasting. 5 (10): 17. 1933-11-15 – via Internet Archive.
  13. ^ "Melodrama to be Given at City of Hope". Daily News-Post and Monrovia News-Post. 1949-11-18. p. 10. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ a b Way, Isabel Stewart (April 1953). "The Five Beautiful Smith Sisters". Chatelaine. 26 (4): 12–13, 34 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ "Isabel Stewart Way". The General Fiction Magazine Index. Retrieved 2025-06-24.
  16. ^ a b "Azusa Mother Finds Time to Write Novel". Covina Argus. 1935-08-09. p. 7 – via Internet Archive.
  17. ^ "Biographies Will Be Reviewed At Literature Section". Arcadia Tribune: 6. October 18, 1935. Retrieved October 9, 2017 – via newspapers.com.
  18. ^ a b Freitag, Florian (2013). The Farm Novel in North America: Genre and Nation in the United States, English Canada, and French Canada, 1845-1945. Boydell & Brewer. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-57113-537-7.
  19. ^ "Seed of the Land; Isabel Stewart Way's Novel is Story of Gripping Power". Pasadena Star-News. 1935-12-21. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ^ a b "Timely Topics Will Feature Writer's Meeting". Pasadena Star-News. 1941-05-15. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ Powers, Laurie (2019-09-26). Queen of the Pulps: The Reign of Daisy Bacon and Love Story Magazine. McFarland. p. 154. ISBN 978-1-4766-7396-7.
  22. ^ a b "What's New in Paperback". The Standard. 1963-05-25. p. 14. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ Way, Isabel Stewart (1937-10-30). "Raiders of the Lost Canyon: A Complete Novel". Western Story Magazine. 160 (3): 14–78 – via Internet Archive.
  24. ^ Way, Isabel Stewart (1938-01-01). "The Devil Rides a Black Horse". Love Story Magazine. 138 (6): 29–43 – via Internet Archive.
  25. ^ Thomson, Isabel Way and Ruby (1943-01-31). "Point of Honor". The Los Angeles Times. p. 89. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. ^ Way, Isabel Stewart (1950-12-30). "By Kindness of Red". Star Weekly. p. 8. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  27. ^ Isabel Stewart Way (1968). Nurse Christy (Valentine Books #138). Internet Archive. Valentine Books.
  28. ^ "Hold Rites for W. S. Way Today". Monrovia News-Post. 1930-01-20. p. 4. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ "Notice of Death is Received; Husband of Isabel Stewart Way Reported Dead". Monrovia News-Post. 1933-02-18. p. 1. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ^ Isabel Stewart Way writes while caring for her baby daughter Eve Felicity, Azusa, 1935 (photograph) (in content), Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive at UCLA, 1935-09-13, retrieved 2025-06-23{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  31. ^ "Baby and Book Go Together". The Los Angeles Times. 1935-07-31. p. 7. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  32. ^ Bishop, Elinor Hopper (1965-11-12). "Personally Speaking". Daily News-Post. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-06-23 – via Newspapers.com.
  33. ^ "Valley Author Succumbs". Pasadena Independent. 1962-08-28. p. 25. Retrieved 2025-06-24 – via Newspapers.com.
  34. ^ "Isabel Stewart Way papers". University of Oregon Libraries, via Archives West. Retrieved 2025-06-23.
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