Sunday, May 20, 2012

Back Then - DANDELION COTTAGE

I downloaded my first audio book yesterday and had a delightful time listening to Dandelion Cottage.
I never read this book as a young girl and I would have loved it back then. It's never too late to catch up, is it? The free app for iPhone and iPad is called Audiobooks -- The list of free books to download is wonderful. You can also read Dandelion Cottage online or on an eReader here.

440 East Arch, Marquette Michigan
Dandelion Cottage has historical significance for its association with a prize-winning Marquette (Michigan) author who made the house famous in her book of the same name. In 1904 local writer Caroll Watson Rankin wrote a popular children's story of four young girls who earned the right to occupy the cottage as a play house over the summer months for the rental price of ridding its yard of its dandelion crop. The cottage was constructed about 1880 and donated to Saint Paul's Episcopal Church by Marquette pioneer and philanthropist Peter White in 1888 as a rental property. The house was moved from its then-current location adjacent to the church on High Street to a site two hundred feet away on Arch Street. To avoid demolition of the disintegrating structure, then-mayor of Marquette, William Birch and his wife, Sally, agreed to purchase and move the cottage in order to maintain the noted structure's presence in the community. source

Real people still live in this delightful cottage. Read about them here: Back Then - mmnow.com

Dandelion Cottage by Caroll Watson Rankin -- Carroll Watson Rankin is the pen name of American author Caroline Clement Watson Rankin (1864–1945). She began writing the story one August day in 1903 when her young daughter Eleanor proclaimed she had read all the books in the world for little girls.

2 comments:

Jen said...

Sounds like the kind of book I would have loved as a child. That cottage is so cute--lucky people who live there! I don''t have iphone but will look for it elsewhere--adorable vintage cover.

Garden, Home and Party said...

Rosemary,
I listen to audio books by Audible. It's the best way for me to multi-task. I can garden while listening/reading(?) my Louise Penny, Gamache books. :-) I'll have to check out the app for free, possibly older audio books. I'm trying to go back and read books I missed as a young person, you're right, you can always go back and make up for books missed.
Karen