Youmans, Eleanor (Mrs.), author; b. St. Louis, Mo.; d. Dr. Charles and Missouri (Harbison) Williams; m. Brigg M. Youmans, 1900 (dec.); ch. William C., b. 1905. Edn. attended public schs. in Mo. and Ohio. Church: Presbyterian. Politics: Republican. Mem. Midland Authors; Strollers (Santa Barbara); Pataskala Advance Club. Hobbies: Photography, animals, books. Fav. rec. or sport: gardening, bicycling, horseback riding. Author: Skitter Cat, 1925 and Skitter Cat and Little Boy, 1926; Skitter Cat and Major, 1927; Skitter and Skeet, 1928; Teddy Horse, 1930; Cinder, 1933; Little Dog Mack, 1936; short stories in American Magazine, Child Life, Junior Home, The Animals' Magazine (London). Co-author: Waif: the Story of Spe, 1937. Address: Pataskala, Ohio.Bentz, Carolyn. “A Tribute to Eleanor Williams Youmans.” The Pataskala Standard 20 Jun. 1979: [Page unknown].
A trip to the Pataskala Library recently revealed a display case filled with the books and some mementos of Eleanor Youmans. She was an extraordinary person. This recalled to me the tribute I wrote at the time of her death in 1968. Eleanor Williams was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1876, the daughter of Dr. Charles Williams. She had a younger sister, Edwina. When their mother died in 1881, Grandfather Stephen C. Williams made the trip to St. Louis and brought them to live with him and two aunts who were still at home.
Stephen was the son of Elias (1776-1871) and Sarah (1778-1860) who came to Ohio in 1818 from New Jersey. They settled first at Jersey but later bought the farm now owned by E. J. Kirts on East Broad Street, Route 16. Stephen was born in 1817 and died in 1899. He married Eleanor Evans who was born in 1821 and came to Granville in 1834. She died in 1872. All are buried in the Pataskala Cemetery.
Eleanor Youmans' father, Charles, was born on the Kirts' farm in 1845 and was one of eleven children of Stephen and Eleanor. He attended Denison University, University of Cincinnati, and graduated from St. Louis Medical School. He married a girl from St. Louis, lived and practiced medicine there. From five until eleven years of age Eleanor lived here [in Pataskala] and attended the Alward one-room school at the corner of York Street and route 16. (She wrote a story about Alward School.) Her father remarried when she was eleven, and she returned to St. Louis where she finished school. After teaching one year there, she came back to Ohio and lived with cousins at Celina and at one time worked in Canton.
She often visited here with her relatives, and in 1900 she married Brigg Youmans. Their only son, William, was born in 1906 [sic.]. From 1900 to 1926 they lived on North Main Street in the present Ralph Hite property. Mrs. Youmans was a woman of many talents. She wrote poetry, short stories, and twelve books for children which were published by Bobbs-Merrill. She was very fond of dogs and cats, and most of her stories were based on the antics of these pets. Her creative abilities were not only in writing - she hooked rugs and made her own designs until she died. Often she remarked that anyone with busy hands would never be bored, and she never was. A visit with her was educational, elevating and perhaps electrifying.
Basically, Mrs. Youmans was a shy person and avoided the limelight. In her early married years she was active in the church and clubs. She was a charter member of the Thimble Club (may have started it) which in 1906 became the Research Club. She belonged also to the Double Thirteen Club. Due to her efforts, the first school orchestra was organized, and the members practiced in her home. In her later years she became a recluse, and because she was an intellectual she was thought by many to be eccentric, but eccentrics are often the most interesting people.
After Mr. Youmans died in 1927, she spend a year in California. She then lived for ten years in the present Redhead property on North High Street. From 1938 until just before she died in 1968 she lived on Atkinson Street just east of the firehouse. The firemen acquired this house after her death and leveled it for parking space. The house was built by James Coons, the grandfather of Florence Coons Wilson and Aimee Coons Atkinson. In fact, a niece was born in the house. She was the wife of Charles and mother of Stanton and Ewing. The house was over a hundred years old.
Mrs. Clyde (Bess) Caner and her sister Blanche Angel who live on East Depot Street are the only living first cousins of Mrs. Youmans in Pataskala. Their father, Elias, and her father, Charles, were brothers.
Note: I have a beaded bag and blue bead necklace which Eleanor gave to Elena Fravel on September 12, 1968. Later Elena gave it to me. Mrs. Youmans' note reads, "The beaded bag and blue bead necklace were sent to me in 1902 by a dear friend in Oklahoma who died last year. The widow of Sitting Bull made the bag. Her autograph was on it, but cleaning erased it as I often carried it." At this time she was disposing of some things in preparation to go and live with her son in Plain City, where she died.Brown, Julie Bentz. "Authors From Our Area Include . . . " Preservation 2000. Licking County, OH: West Licking Historical Publication Committee, 1999. 507-508.
Eleanor Youmans: Our little corner of the county can boast a well known (in her time) author. Eleanor Youmans was an extraordinary person. She was born in st. Louis in 1876. Her grandfather, Stephen Williams, came to Ohio with his family around 1821 as a baby. Her grandmother, Eleanor Evans, was born in Wales in 1821 and came to Granville in 1834.
Her father, Dr. Charles Williams, was one of 11 children. He attended Denison University, the University of Cincinnati, and graduated from the St. Louis Medical School. He married a St. Louis girl, and he lived and practiced there. His wife died when Eleanor was only five. Her father felt unable to raise a little girl, so he brought his daughter back to Ohio to be raised by his family. His father still lived on a farm on Route 16 east of Pataskala. This farm is now the Jefferson Ridge Subdivision; the Williams house still stands.
She lived with her grandfather until she was 11. During that time, she attended the Alward School, a one-room schoolhouse at the corner of Route 16 and York Street. Then her father remarried, so Eleanor returned to St. Louis to live with them. She finished school there and started to teach school. After teaching for one year, she returned to Ohio and lived with some cousins near Canton.
She also visited her grandfather, aunts, and uncles in Pataskala frequently. In 1900 she married Brigg Youmans. Their only son, William, was born in 1906 [sic.]. From 1900 to 1926 the family lived on north Main Street in Pataskala on the southeast corner of Main and Willow.
Eleanor was a very talented woman. She wrote poetry, short stories, and later, 12 children's books. These books were published by Bobbs-Merrill. Mrs. Youmans was very fond of cats and dogs, so most of her books dealt with the antics of these animals and included such titles as Skitter Cat, Skitter Cat and Major, and Jack, Jock and Funny. She also wrote of her ancestor, Theophilis Rees, and his settling of the Welsh Hills north of Granville, in her Mount Delightful. These books were illustrated by the well known "animal artist," Will Rannells, of Columbus.
Writing was not her only talent. She also hooked rugs, making her own designs, until the year she died. She often remarked that anyone who could keep hands busy would never be bored. And she never was. A visit with her was educational, elevating, and entertaining.
Basically, Mrs. Youmans was a shy person and avoided the limelight. In her early married years, she was very active in the church and clubs and interested in people. She was instrumental in starting the first school orchestra here, was a member of the Double Thirteen Club, and a charter member of the Thimble Club which later became the Research Club.
After Mr. Youmans died in 1927, she spent a year in California. When she returned to Pataskala, she moved to a house on North High Street, where she lived for ten years. From 1938 until just before her death in 1968, she lived on Atkinson Street in a house built by James Coons.
The Pataskala library donated a collection of her books, all of which are now out of print, to the Granville Historical Society.
* * * * *
From correspondence Ginny Beckett Gakle received from Eleanor Youmans many years ago, Mrs. Youmans shares some "notes on writing:"
"The best time to write is in the morning, while the dishes wait. Sinclair Lewis got up and wrote his first book on the kitchen sink, while his wife slept.
"But Harriet Beecher Stowe said she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin 'At night, after I put the children to bed.'
"From Somerset Maugham, 'If something worries you, write it. Then you will be rid of it.'"
YOUMANS, ELEANOR (Sept. 7, 1876- ), was born in Maxville, Mo., but her parents moved to Licking County in 1881. She married Briggs [sic.] M. Youmans in 1900. Her last known address is Pataskala, Licking County. She has written a number of books for children, e.g., Skitter Cat, Indianapolis, [1925].The Newark Advocate 12 Nov. 1932: 9.
Mrs. Eleanor Youmans, Pataskala, author of several books of juveniles, will speak Monday in two Newark schools, it was announced today by Superintendent O. J. Barnes. Mrs. Youmans will speak about 10 o’clock in Roosevelt school. If the weather is favorable, children from Hudson, Riverside and Keller will assemble at Roosevelt to hear Mrs. Youmans. At 1:30 o’clock she will speak in Lincoln school, and with favorable weather, pupils from Conrad and Hazelwood will hear her.
Mrs. Youmans has written three books. “Skitter-Cat,” “Skitter-Cat and Skeet,” and “Skitter-Cat and Major,” all of which are among the juvenile books on the list certified by the Ohio Teachers’ Reading circle. Mr. Barnes is on the board of control and was instrumental in having the books approved for reading circle circuit."Pataskala Woman’s Love for Animals Provides Material for Juveniles’ Books." The Newark Advocate 1 Oct. 1937: Section 2, page 13.
First Story Accepted by Magazine 16 Years Ago Was Start.
“Mother, you don’t write. You just talk about writing.”
Twelve-year-old William Youmans said it one night when his mother was putting him to bed. She decided she’d show him. (It’s poor policy to let your children lose faith in you.)
Today William Youmans is a married man. Mrs. Youmans is the grandmother of a 7-year-old boy. And she has a string of books which the recently Bobbs-Merrill – released “Waif,” made the eighth.
So now she’s writing—and talking about it, too, on those occasions when super-boisterous puppy “Jill” gives her a chance to breath an uninterrupted sentence. That’s not often, but it’s lots of fun. Or perhaps you’d better drop by the little five-room cottage in Pataskala and see for yourself the life this veteran children’s story writer lives with her black and tan terrier and her black and white cat.
Magazine Accepts Story.
Amid the scratch-bark impasse, Mrs. Youmans to be a perfect hostess. She’ll show you her first printed short story venture—“The Man Who Wanted a Dog That Would Kill”—in the October, 1921, edition of the American magazine.
Commemorating it and hanging above her library case, which is replete with eight children’s books she has written, is a large oil painting, a striking thing in greys and blacks, the original of the art used with the first short story. It was done by Douglass S. Duer and given to Mrs. Youmans by John Siddall, late publisher of the American magazine.People Make the Difference. Licking County, OH: Bicentennial Historical Publication Townships of Etna, Harrison, Jersey, Lima, Pataskala, 1976. VII3-VII4.
But the “Skitter Cat” stories were what started serious penning on the part of Mrs. Youmans. She had a beautiful white angora—Skitter—who lived such a colorful real life that it was easy to turn into a book. Followed “Skitter Cat,” “Skitter Cat and Little Boy,” “Skitter Cat and Major,” “Teddy Horse,” “Cinder,” and “Little Dog Mack.”
All of the animal heroes are or have been good friends of the author, who mentions that writing a book only takes her about three months, but tracing material and checking up on the pasts of her experienced characters sometimes requires a least a year.
Friends Make Copy.
“I’ve always put my friends in my books, too,” she explains. “Someday I’ll stub my toe.” But old man libel hasn’t caught up with her yet. While Jill and the black cat (“Whiskers”) frolic on the floor, Mrs. Youmans gives a brief autobiography, prefacing it with the philosophy that authors lead very uneventful lives themselves, having to “sit by the side of the road and watch the parade go by.”
She was born near St. Louis, Mo., went to Pataskala—her father’s home—when 5, lived on the farm where the airways beacon on Route 16 is now located until she was 11, returned to St. Louis for a period of eight years, Pataskala-ed again when she was 19 and married Brigg Youmans, who died 10 years ago.
“I’ve always written for fun,” admits the dark-eyed woman, whose hearty laugh and lively curbing of the dog-and-cat tangles make you think she’s been having fun all her life.
The first of the cat stories was an accident, really, she explains. A friend of hers asked her for some contributions for “The Cat Courier,” and when an English magazine began to copy the Youmans cat tales, the idea looked too good to discard.
Published in England.
So she began. An English firm published “Teddy Horse.” Child fan mail started rolling in. Skitter Cat stories were selling 1,000 copies a year, and the Bobbs Merrill people were busy answering requests for the cat’s autograph. Mrs. Youmans took several hundred black ink footprints of her white cat and sent them out.
Her Own Pets Most Frequently Woven Into Animal Stories.
The summer she went to California and left Skitter at home brought on a felony that the courts never knew about. Autographs were necessary; Mrs. Youmans and the cat were miles apart; forgery was in the air. The author borrowed a neighbor’s cat, some purple ink, and temporarily alleviated the demand for Skitter-graphs, as she called them. Skitter never knew the difference, but probably wouldn’t have objected anyway. (She [sic.] didn’t like ink.)
When “Teddy Horse” went on British book shelves, another interesting thing occurred. The editors did some blue pencilling and changed certain words, which they referred to as “Americanisms.” Examples of the editing: “Sure” to “certainly,” “curb” to “kerb,” “burned gasoline” to “petrol fumes,” “gee, he’s cute,” to “isn’t he topping?” “cunning little colt,” to “jolly little colt.”
“I really don’t know which is my best,” says Mrs. Youmans, asked to name her favorite Youmans book. “The reviewers say ‘Waif’ is, but I’m a little too close to tell.”
“Waif” is Top-Notcher.
And “Waif” is one of her top-notchers. It’s the story of a little Columbus mendicant, who, after a life more mangy than otherwise, ends up as mascot of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, from whom she derived the name “Spe.”
“The boys at the fraternity were helpful about getting the information for me,” says Mrs. Youmans, who continues with an enthusiastic description of her work with Will Rannels, “the greatest living painter of dogs in America.”
Mr. Rannels, 1911 Indianola avenue, Columbus, has illustrated the book in high style, doing nobly by its part-Spitz, part-Peke heroine and her host of friends. At present she is living with the artist, who also owns Fritz, Ben, and Tommy, other characters in the book.
Mrs. Youmans’ next is to be about a poodle, she admits, corralling an armful of Whiskers and Jill for simultaneous trips through the same door to be photographed.
“Really, I’d rather raise 10 cats than a dog,” she confesses after the struggle with the terrier (Jill, is more than faintly camera curious).
Out in the backyard is the garden Mrs. Youmans planted herself. Gardening is her only hobby. “It’s all mixed up,” she explains, “I planted the zinnias between the peas and beans.”
And you wonder how she ever had time—what with caring for her two animal dynamos, writing about another, reading letters from children, entertaining distinguished visitors—to even think about a garden.
She laughs that nice, hearty laugh. “It’s a dog’s life,” she winks.
But she loves it.
Caption to photo:
Always coming between the merry tangles of her dog, “Jill,” and her cat, “Whiskers,” Mrs. Eleanor Youmans. Pataskalan author of the recently published children’s book “Waif,” is pictured above in her normal role as mediator. She says the two pets keep her life from being at all lonely, and when she isn’t playing with them, she’s writing about other people’s pets. Perhaps the thorough background is what’s making the new book sell so well. Anyway, it’s highly in demand.
In 1900, Brigg had married Eleanor Williams, daughter of Charles, a doctor in St. Louis. He was the son of Stephen Williams, an early settler on the "old mud pike," now route 16. Eleanor is our most famous author, having written more than twelve very popular children's books, most of them about cats and dogs. Some of the favorites were Little Dog Mac [sic.] and the Skitter Cat series. They were published at the Bobbs-Merrill Company in the twenties and thirties and some were illustrated by the well known Columbus artist, Will Rannells.Tykodi, Martha. “Eleanor Williams Youmans.” Journey Through 200 Years: Vintage Vignettes from Licking County, Ohio. Ed. Dan Fleming. Newark, OH: Licking County Historical Society, 2009. 53.
Tykodi, Martha. “Bicentennial Memories: 'Mount Delightful’ Recalls the Early Welsh Settlers.” “This Week in Licking County” Column. The Columbus Dispatch 22 June 2008: [page unknown].
Among the earliest settlers of Licking County was a group of stalwart Welshmen led by Theophilus Rees and Thomas Phillips. They settled north of the village of Granville in the very early 19th century, and the area soon became known as the Welsh Hills.
While most of the old buildings are gone now, memories of this significant community and its people may still be found in its burial ground, the Welsh Hills Cemetery, on Welsh Hills Road.
Other memories of these people have been preserved in a beautiful story written in 1944 by Eleanor Williams Youmans called Mount Delightful. She wrote of her dogs and cats, and of the immigration of her grandmother, Ellen Evans. Ellen was born in Wales in 1821 and came to the Welsh Hills in 1832. She married Stephen Williams, and they lived for awhile on the Old Mud Pike in Harrison Township. He operated a U.S. Post Office for awhile out of their home. Eleanor lived with them in her early days until she married Brigg Youmans, who was from an influential Pataskala business family.
It was after the death of Eleanor's husband that she began writing children's books [*see note below]. Mount Delightful was the last of these. Besides writing, Eleanor was influential in starting the first school orchestra in Pataskala. She was also a member of several Pataskala women's and cultural clubs.
Photography also played a role in Eleanor's busy life. Several glass photographic plates, presumably taken by her, have been preserved by her friend, Virginia Beckett Gakle of Harbor Hills. Virgina has shared these with the West Licking Historical Society. One of the images is of the South Fork of the Licking River, taken from Creek Road in the early 20th century near the historic Abe Miller/William Ritchey farm.
Because of the beauty and significance of this image to Licking County history, it will soon be featured on a bell pull produced by the Licking County Bicentennial. Thus, the talented Eleanor Williams Youmans, who loved her pets, her welsh roots, and all of life, has once more contributed to the preservation and perpetuation of Licking County's rich history.
*Note: While the majority of Youmans's stories were written after 1927, she published three novels and at least one short story prior to the death of her husband.
