Happy 131st Birthday to Harriet Stratemeyer Adams!
Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was born in the late 1800s - 1892 to be exact, on December 12 and we're still reminiscing about her in 2023! Her charm and wit, stubbornness and Nancy Drew Sleuth-ability - kept her father, Edward Stratemeyer's company - The Stratmeyer Syndicate - going for decades after his death in 1930. As we remember Harriet today for her birthday, let's also think about her this Christmas season!
The Dec. 16, 1980 issue of Family Circle magazine featured a story written by her as "Carolyn Keene" - "Solve a Christmas Mystery." In it, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys solved a fun Christmas Mystery, and this story was later published in the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Sleuths! paperback as the short story, "The Secret of Mountaintop Inn."
If you don't have this Super Sleuths! volume, you can find a copy of it on a site like eBay. If you're on the Nancy Drew Book Fans Facebook Group, you can search the posts for "family circle" to see scans of the story from Family Circle that James Keeline posted. One is shown below. Click on the image for a larger view.
The "Solve a Christmas Mystery" begins with this paragraph introducing it, "Here's a special Christmas story that everyone who has ever read the well-known Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books will love. It was written especially for FAMILY CIRCLE by Harriet Adams (her pen name is Carolyn Keene) who has been writing these series for fifty years."
The story begins in a blizzard where Nancy's friend Karen is driving them to "Mountain Top Inn." The Hardy Boys are to be there as well and then they get entangled together in solving a mystery. In the end, mystery wrapped up and order restored, they celebrate by singing Christmas Carols and Nancy says, "A Merry, Merry Christmas to you all!"
I'll also think fondly of Harriet today on her birthday as I recently solved a fantastic behind-the-scenes mystery in Cooperstown, NY of why Harriet and her family had a connection to the town and what led her to write the 49th classic Nancy Drew mystery book, The Secret of Mirror Bay and set it in the town of Cooperstown. One of my better sleuthing efforts in searching out Nancy Drew's history behind the mystery! If you didn't get a chance to hear about all of our sleuthing and adventures behind the scenes, check out my blog post on that adventure:
The Secret of Mirror Bay - The Secrets & History Behind the Mystery
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