In Ian’s mother’s youth, and in his own teenage years, autograph albums were popular – asking friends and relations to contribute a page with a drawing, poem, personal message or other memento. When Ian was asked to contribute to a friend’s album, he often reproduced the first entry in his own album: ‘It’s not the gale, but the set of the sail, which tells us the way to go.’ Ian discovered, with incredulity, when compiling this note at the age of 87, that the author of that couplet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, was also the author of the poem, The Valley of Fear, which is the fifth entry here from Isobel Ingram’s album.
Ten pages are copied here from her album, from 1913 (when she was 17) to 1920:
- Five about life during the Great War, 1914 to 1918, and
- Five, chronologically from 1913 to 1920, by evangelists and Bible teachers.
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