558b / Anne Austin, mother of prodigy

putterings 558a < 558b > 559 index

Here is a transcription — meaning corrected OCR renderings — of Anne Austin’s account of raising her daughter Elizabeth Benson, a celebrated child prodigy of their time.
The account appeared in a series of six articles (syndicated by NEA, which is still in business). This transcription is taken from LoC’s Chronicling America digitalization of The Indianapolis Times (from the Indiana State Library), June 2 through 8, as follows :

“Mother of Prodigy Tells How She Brought Up Child.”
“Working Mothers Best, Says Prodigy; Ellen Elizabeth says then they do not get on your nerves.”
“Ellen As An Infant Was a Pal; Mother never talked baby talk to wonder child, she says.”
“One Fault Revealed; She’s Lazy; But prodigy’s mother overcame that with early discipline.”
“Life Facts No Mystery to Prodigy; Ellen Elizabeth taught sex truth from first without evasion.”
“Elizabeth Forms Own Moral Code; ‘Don’t do anything to hurt mother,’ is creed of girl prodigy.”
The series of articles was preceded by an introduction authored by Virginia Swain, NEA Service Writer, also transcribed —
“Sorrow for Mother as Daughter, 12, Graduates.”

—

▌ bar at left returns to top of page.

“Mother of Prodigy Tells How She Brought Up Child.”
(June 2, 1926) : link

Anne Austin and her daughter, Ellen Elizabeth Benson. Ellen Elizabeth at 12 is being graduated from a New York high school at the head of her class. Scientists say she has the mind of a 19-year-old already.
Editor’s Note — This is the first of six articles by the mother of Ellen Benson, the 12-year-old child who has just completed a college preparatory course in New York.
By Anne Austin.
Everyone is inclined to smile indulgently, but pityingly, at very young mothers. They are so full of theories about motherhood and child-rearing.
But in looking back over the twelve very full and gloripus years that I have been the mother of the child whose mind is the brightest that has ever been tested, I cannot help coming to the conclusion that my extreme youth — I married just before I was 17 and was a mother eight days after my 18th birthday — was the biggest factor in getting Elizabeth off to a flying start as a prize baby, both physically and mentally.
For youth has boundless courage and lofty ideals.
Judged by adult standards, my marriage was an insane thing. I was undersized physically, in very uncertain health, and I was working my way through college. I married a boy of 19 who was also a college freshman, working his way.
We married In August, and enrolled for our sophomore year in Baylor University at Waco, Texas, in September.
Prayed for Child
We had less than a hundred dollars between us, yet I began to pray for a baby. I am sure my intense desire for a child was the underlying motive In my marriage. When nature decided to let me have my way, I kept right on praying, but I was rather timid about, asking for blessings for my baby.
I did not pray that the child should be pretty! I asked only that she — I wanted a girl — should be born with a sound mind In a sound body, and that I should be able to care for her.
Elizabeth was born Sept. 21, 1913, and from the very fir|t I knew that my prayer had been answered. She was a strong, perfectly healthy baby and within a few weeks demonstrated conclusively that she was at least normal mentally.
After losing only one semester from college, I resumed both my college studies and the work by which I made my share of the expenses. I dashed home between classes to nurse the baby, studying the next lesson as I did so. From the first I was mad about my baby, and although I had no time to rock her to sleep or sing to her — I can’t sing anyway — I dreamed great dreams for her.

To Be Best Friend
I had been lonely; she would be my best friend, the girl chum to whom I could tell secrets and confide ambitions. She should have everything that, as a poverty-ridden, homely little brat I had missed in life.
Above all, she should have perfect health — studied Dr. Holt’s baby book more than any textbook used in my college course — and she should have perfect mental and spiritual freedom.
From the very first I recognized her right, to her own individuality; she was a person whom I intended to make my beloved friend; she was never just my baby, to be ruled by me.
I believe I have accomplished all these things for her, and I shall try to tell other mothers how I did it. There were no tricks, no theories, no magic about it. It all applies as aptly to the child of average intelligence as to the super-bright child.
“Working Mothers Best, Says Prodigy; Ellen Elizabeth says then they do not get on your nerves.”
(June 3, 1926) : link
This is the second of a series of six exclusive NEA articles by Anne Austin, magazine editor, telling how she has reared her daughter, Ellen Elizabeth Benson, 12, whose mind has been called “the brightest ever tested.”
By Anne Austin. For NEA News Service
When my daughter, Elizabeth Benson, was 10 years old she was invited by the New York League of Business and Professional Women to address a meeting of the league on the subject, “The Business or Professional Woman as a Mother From the Child’s Viewpoint.”
I was out of the city at the time, on a magazine assignment, and knew nothing of the occasion until it was all over. But the president of the club told me that Elizabeth created a sensation with her statement that a working woman makes the best mother, because she does not see too much of her child.
Don’t Get on Nerves
“When mother comes home from work, I’m tickled to death to see her. We both have skads of things to tell each other; we’re excited and interested over each other. She hasn’t been watching everything I did all clay, nagging me and fretting over me, and I haven’t been getting on her nerves, as all children are hound to do. She brings home exciting news of the outside world, and I get fun out of telling her my own budget of news and reporting on the duties she has left me to perform.
“It’s like having a daddy and a mother in one person.”
I certainly should have preferred to stay at home with my baby, rather than leave her all day. From the time she was sixteen months old I worked outside the home, and had no money with which to pay a nurse to look after her. We boarded the first two years. Elizabeth amusing herself all day long.
Strict Obedience
Naturally, strict obedience was absolutely necessary for her own protection and for my peace of mlnd. I had to be sure that she would do exactly as she was told. She was not allowed to touch a bite of food that I myself did not give her. Disobedience might have meant that dread scourge, cholera infantum. To this day she does not eat anything between meals.
If I was not to go insane with worry, I had to be sure that she would not strike matches, wander away from the big, inclosed yard of the boarding house; that she would take her nap every afternoon, and, above all, that she would not lie about anything. The slightest disobedience had to be punished swiftly in a way that she would remember. There was no time for arguing, theorizing and temporizing. My word had to be her law, so far as her physical life was concerned.
Sense of Justice
A reporter asked me, “Did you ever spank Elizabeth?” My answer was emphatic, "Yes, of course, she was spanked for disobedience, but it was seldom necessary for to be spanked twice for the same offense.” By the time she was 3 years old she required very little physical punishment, but an occasional spanking came her way until she was 8 or 9 years old.
I don’t believe she has ever resented a punishment in her life, for she has a sense of justice, and I always make perfectly clear the rules by which her physical life is guided. Naturally, most of these rules concern her health, her home duties, and her relationship to society.
Her mental and moral and spiritual training is an entirely different story, or rather, three different stories, all of which will be, briefly told during the course of this series.
“Ellen As An Infant Was a Pal; Mother never talked baby talk to wonder child, she says.”
(June 4, 1926) : link
This is the third of Anne Austin’s exclusive NEA articles on the childhood of Ellen Elizabeth Benson, her daughter, whose mind is called “the brightest ever tested.” There will be three others.
By Anne Austin. NEA Service Writer
I have just come home after seeing Elizabeth graduated front high school. She’s asleep now, her round, babyish face still flushed with excitement, the yellow hair damp on her forehead, her fat, dimpled arms flung wide, in that complete abandonment to slumber which characterizes a perfectly healthy child. Her ribbon-tied diploma lies on the floor by her bedside, like a doll with which she had grown tired of playing. I’m sure it won’t occur to her to frame it neatly; she isn’t a very orderly person.
And I’ve been sitting here, feeling weepy and full of forebodings as to the future, when she will be away at college, but feeling exalted, too, and happy, in thinking back over the twelve years during which I have watched her develop. I don’t make claim to any credit at all for the line on that diploma which testifies that she graduated with highest honors. For I never helped her with a single lesson.
Never Pushed
When she was 16 months old, realizing her unusual possibilities, I determined to let her develop with absolute independence. I would never “push” her, for her development, one inch.
As I have said before, I have always thought of her as a person, an entirely separate individuality, rather than as my baby, to be molded or warped by me. But I did from the time she was a baby, talk with her as freely as If she were adult. Before she was able talk plainly I told her all the news of my busy days, not condescendingly or In baby talk, but as one friend talks to another. I wanted her to be my friend, above anything else In the world.
In some curious way I seemed to be born again, with Elizabeth’s birth. Her childhood was my childhood — I’d missed a real childhood of my own. Before she could talk plainly, we told each other secrets, laughed together gleefully — she has a gorgeous sense of humor; and made love to each other like a pair of sweet hearts.
She taught herself to read when she was 4, and from that time on we discussed books together, each with respectful attention to the other’s opinions but not giving an inch when we disagreed. I have never told her which authors she should read, or forbidden her to read any book that she wanted to read. I have never told her what she should think of a piece of music or a painting.
Thinks for Herself
I have always insisted that she think for herself, and I may add that it took very little insisting on my part, for she has no trace of subservience. I have done only two things to further her mental development — I have given her access to the best books, the best music, the best in art and drama, and I have introduced her to nearly all the interesting people I have met in my work. None of my friends — most of them writers, artists and musicians — treat her as a child in mentality. They do not talk down to her; they admit her into the conversation as if she were adult.
Her school work has been strictly her own affair. Until she was a senior in high school, I rarely saw one of her textbooks, since she did practically all of her studying at school, during study periods. Of course I took an interest in her progress, made friends with her teachers, but I did not nag or scold if her grades slumped temporarily. If she had not managed to make an A average for almost every term she has been in school, I hope I still should have had strength to stick to the program of “hands off.”
Tomorrow I shall tell about Elizabeth’s share in making our home. For there came the rub!
“One Fault Revealed; She’s Lazy; But prodigy’s mother overcame that with early discipline.”
(June 5, 1926) : link
Here is Anne Austin’s fourth motherhood article about Ellen Elizabeth Benson.
By Anne Austin
Lest I be accused of making myself appear to be an ideal mother and Elizabeth a paragon of a child. I hasten to slip into this series a frank discussion of her most annoying fault, a fault which has earned her a good many sound spankings and countless stern curtain lectures. I have a quick temper and I’ve been extremely busy making a living ever since Elizabeth was born — two factors which have insured friction be tween my easy-going, careless, lazy daughter and myself.
For Elizabeth is certainly lazy, physically. She apparently hasn’t a nerve in her body that she’s conscious of, and she doesn’t give a rap about an immaculate house. I’m nervous, keyed up to a tremendous pitch most of the and I can’t abide a disorderly room. You can imagine the result.
Worked at Three
Since there was no money for a nurse or a cook or even a part-time servant, I insisted that Elizabeth take over her just share of the work, even when she was less than 2 years old. She had to keep her playthings in order and act as her own nurse. When she was 3 years old she stood on a chair to dry dishes and she had to learn to make her own bed. She did both willingly enough, but to this day she does them both rather badly.
Of course she washes the dishes now, as well as dries them, cooks our breakfast and helps prepare the dinner. Since she is bigger and stronger than I am now, she has to do the heavy cleaning, but it takes my constant supervision to see that it is done even halfway right. She admits very frankly that she hates housework and would never do a stroke of it if she didn’t have to.
Her idea of bliss is for us to become rich enough to afford a staff of servants! Since that seems to be rather distantly in the future, she does her share of the work with pretty good grace, because she loves me too much to impose upon me. Sometimes, when I am ill, she has all of the housework there is to do in a four-room apartment, and then she does it with great cheerfulness, singing lustily off-key. But even when she’s rejoicing in her feeling of grown-up responsibility she does her work far from perfectly.
Washes Own Clothes
She simply can’t attach enough importance to spotless kitchen floors and wrinkleless beds. She washes her own socks and dresses of the kind which the laundry would spoil, but it never occurs to her to sew on a button unless I point out the necessity to her. I do that sort of pointing with what, to her, is painful frequency.
I credit my early strict discipline with the fact that she never openly rebels, never refuses to do anything she is told to do. But I can’t claim that she performs any of these tasks with any degree of perfection.
She would so much rather read or talk or play with her dog. Her teachers tell me that she is just as lazy about performing tasks at school — cleaning out her desk, copying laboratory notebooks, making history outlines. But I refuse to be sorry for her, because she has to do disagreebale tasks. After all, life has been pretty good to her.
Next, I shall tell, as frankly as possible, how I have taught Elizabeth the so-called “facts of life.”
“Life Facts No Mystery to Prodigy; Ellen Elizabeth taught sex truth from first without evasion.”
(June 7, 1926) : link
Here is the fifth of Anne Austin’s talks to mothers on how she raised Ellen Elizabeth Benson, her “wonder” daughter, who at 12 has “the brightest mind ever tested.” The sixth will complete NEA’S exclusive series.
By Anne Austin
Almost every mother I meet asks me sooner or later, with self-conciousness lowered voice and a glance about to see whether either her child or mine is overhearing her: Have you told Elizabeth anything about — er — about the — facts of life?”
I was reared in the post-Victorian era when little boys wrote vile words on back fences and when mothers told children silly lies about the doctor and his black bag or finding babies under lily pads — according to the degree of sentimentality and imagination which the mother possessed. I remember some rather dreadful experiences in my own life as a result of the policy of keeping girl children in ignorance of everything connected with sex.
Couldn’t Lie to Her
I have never told Elizabeth a lie about sex or anything connected with her own body and its future pleasures and uses. I couldn’t lie about one whole important phase of life and expect her to trust me on other matters.
And by the time she was old enough to have a natural curiosity about her own body and the manner in which she had come into the world, I had lost my silly prejudices against frankness on sex subjects. I found that sex was not mysterious, was nothing to whisper slyly about, nothing to blush about. When, at the age of 7, she asked me how God had made her, I told her the truth — not a fairy story. But I told it without embarrassment, in exactly the same manner that I gave her all other information for which she asked.
She was not embarrassed, of course, by the careful, explicit information I gave her. Why should she have been? I believe it is often, the mother’s furtive manner of trying to dress up biological truths which makes children shy off from further questions. Children are awfully keen — they know when we’re lying or evading, and they won’t willingly put themselves twice in the position, of being lied to.
Armed With Truth
When Elizabeth was 9 she asked me, laughing at a movie we had seen, “Why does the villain always chase the heroine all over the place?”
I told her exactly what the villain wants when he chases the young heroine. I even drew, clumsily, but quite plainly, a diagram to illustrate my frank exposition of passion, unlawful lust, and sexual union. Then because we were living in Hollywood, where, as rumors has it, there is an uncommon degree of perversion, I explained the more common types to her.
I had to protect her from anything that could possibly happen to her during my all-day-long absence from home. My work frequently took me out at night, too, and since she had to go to bed at 8 o’clock on school lights until she was 11 years old, I could not take her with me. She had to stay at home alone. She has never known the meaning of fear, and solitude is welcome to her, rather than a cause for brooding and unhappiness.
The only way to protect her from un-understood tendencies in her own nature and from prowling degenerates was to arm her with complete knowledge of her body, its future uses, and of vice as it is practiced by people who were wrongly taught in their childhood.
Now Not Interested
My friends discuss anything and everything before Elizabeth as freely as with me. Sex is a subject which she understands as fully as she does the basic principles of dietetics, and in which she is not half so interested. As for myself, I can’t for the life of me see why there is so much fuss made over the proper way to explain “where babies come from” to small children. It isn’t half so hard to account for as where the flame goes when the candle is blown out.
The sixth and concluding article in the series will discuss Elizabeth’s moral and spiritual development.
“Elizabeth Forms Own Moral Code; ‘Don’t do anything to hurt mother,’ is creed of girl prodigy.”
(June 8, 1926) : link
This is Anne Austin’s final article on how she raised her “wonder-daughter,” Ellen Elizabeth Benson, whose mind is “the brightest ever tested.”
By Anne Austin. (Written for NEA Service)
Today, rather puzzled as to what to say in this article on Elizabeth’s moral and spiritual development. I asked her, “What is your moral code?”
“Well, there’s not much of a code to it. I just try to live so that I can keep my self-respect, can look myself in the eye without blushing. I search deep down inside of me when I am puzzled over a decision as to conduct, and find out what seems to me to be right. Then, of course, I always think about whether anything I do would hurt you, or anyone else, but you most of all.”
No Choice as Child
I don’t think that is a poor code for a child of 12 to have worked out for herself. When I was a child I was ruled with an iron hand The religion of my family was forced me. My family’s moral code was pounded into me. I felt that I had no choice in anything.
As I have said several times before in this series, I recognized Elizabeth’s right to be a person, and all my rules and prohibitions have dealt almost solely with her health and with ordinary daily living &mdash the joint making of a home. I have conscientiously kept my hands off her mind and her soul, believing that they had a right to develop without interference.
She is unselfish, generous to a fault, considerate of the feelings of others, intensely affectionate and yet most of her joy comes from self-communion. She enjoys solitude more than any person I know. Out of her communion with her own mind and soul, into which I do not pry, come beautiful confidences, an occasional poem that startles me with its penetfating philosophy and understanding of heights which I have not reached, and short stories and little bits of essays that give me breath-taking glimpses of the freedom and splendor of her uninhibited soul.
Studying Religions
As for religion, in the common meaning of the word, she has none. She has, for two or three years, been quietly making a study of comparative religions, and at the moment she leans strongly toward Buddhism. She believes in a supreme being, or, as she calls it, a “cosmic force,” which is variously worshipped and surrounded with pleasing myths by every race on the globe. What she ultimately comes to believe will be long strictly to her, because she will have found it for herself.
When she was 3 years old she began to attend Sunday School, and has continued to do so whenever she pleased. She has read the entire Bible, not because anyone asked her to, but because she wanted to. She does not believe it is the word of God, but she is deeply interested in the religious lore of every country. Let who will criticise her or be shocked.
I contend that it is Elizabeth’s soul and that she has a right to discover the truth for herself. I do not claim to know all the truth myself. Why should I force her to accept orthodox Christianity or any other belief? She is good, she is very conscious of the God force within her, and she is seeking truth. I am content.
Trained to Tact
As for her relationship to society, I have tried to train her to be tactful, considerate and a constructive influence, to respect laws, to allow others the same freedom of opinion which she herself enjoys. I have also taught “manners” from infancy, as a matter of course. I have tried to set her a fairly decent example, in my contacts with people.
As for the rest — her inner moral and spiritual development — she has had complete charge of that. As a result she is a characterful individual, as distinctly separate from me as if I were not her mother. The relationship of which I am really proud is that she is my best friend.
“Sorrow for Mother as Daughter, 12, Graduates”
(June 1, 1926) : link
Virginia Swain, NEA Service Writer

Child prodigy announces she will earn her own way from now on.
New York, June 1. — Ellen Elizabeth Benson and Anne Austin have reached the crossroads. Anne Austin is Ellen Elizbeth’s mother and Ellen Elizabeth is being graduated from high school.
The May evening exercises at the Gardner school, in which 12-year old Ellen Elizabeth stood among her 18-year-old classmates and received her diploma, marked the end of the road which she and Anne Austin have walked together.
When finishing college preparatory work at 12, with the mental capacity of a girl of 19, Ellen Elizabeth is still a little girl, clinging to her adored mother — herself barely 30 — with the trusting affection of a child.
New York educators are in a furore over Elizabeth’s accomplishments. She holds the highest mentality test for her age ever recorded in America. She has read more than most college professors, and writes with a distinguished style. “The most remarkable child prodigy in America,” the schoolmen are calling her.
Since the announcement of her age by the school, reporters, psychologists and educators have flocked to the little apartment where Anne Austin and her daughter live. The telephone rings with congratulations and the mailman brings gifts.
But Anne and Elizabeth are rather somber. For them, this graduation is the end of something precious.
When 12-year-old Elizabeth steps out into the world next fall to make her own living, as she intends to do, two dear friends will see the end of that close intimacy of thought and life which began when the younger was a baby.
It was a strange babyhood, clouded by the desertion of Elizabeth’s father and the despair of her girl mother. Their life has been an odyssey, beginning in Waco, Tex., and touching most of the large towns in the middle west, and some in California.
Anne Austin has earned a living for them first as teacher, then as newspaper writer and magazine editor. Hampered by illness, tormented with anxieties for the future of the fatherless child, she has fought to comparative security.
And Elizabeth has been her reward.
Her mother tells of the first realization that hers was no ordinary child. The baby was entered in a health contest in Waco at the age of eight months. While the examining physician held her, she looked up at him and said: “Baby wants dinner”. The man almost dropped her.
At 16 months, a psychology class at Baylor university, in which her mother was a student, tested Elizabeth’s vocabulary and found it to contain 159 words.
At 3, Elizabeth startled her by reading the letters in a magazine.
At 4, having been left in a convent while her mother was away on a newspaper assignment, Elizabeth sneaked into a classroom and electrified the teacher by reading from the book the class was using. She had never been taught.
Now they hope she may find a place in a wealthy family as playmate and tutor for a child, to grow and travel until she is old enough for college.
In spite of the impending separation Elizabeth is enjoying her graduation.
“The only thing I don’t like,” she said, wrinkling her bright round child’s face, “is that I can’t go to my own senior dance, because I’m not 16!
“Study? No, I don’t like to study. I just read and remember. And I’m lazy about housework. Just ask Darling — my mother, I mean. Say, do you like Michael Arlen?
“I think he’s shoddy. His books are synthetic pearls. Aldous Huxley is the real thing. I read all of Hardy when I was eight. I think Anatole Fiance is the greatest author in literature. But Cabell runs him a close race.”
Elizabeth will discuss world politics and theology if encouraged. She never introduces a discussion herself.
Elizabeth’s mother insists that her daughter’s progress is the result of no system. “She worked alone, while I was out on newspaper assignments. I surrounded her with good books and let her choose. Once when I was ill she spent a month at home alone, though she was only eight. During that time she read the 20 volumes of the Book of Knowledge.
“I dread the time when I must come home and not find her here. But everything has to end, doesn’t it? Elisabeth feels she must help.”
Anne Austin and Ellen Elizabeth have got along very well. As for the father, whose name Anne dropped ten years ago — he sent Elizabeth a wrist watch for commencement.

Almost exactly same text as above, minus photo, same by-line, appears as “‘Brightest Girl,’ 12, Graduates, Goes Out to Make Her Way in Life; Ellen Elizabeth Benson graduates with class of 19 year old girls.”
The South Bend News-Times (June 6, 1926) : link
—
see entry on Virginia Swain (1899-1968) at Lesser-Known Writers (March 22, 2012) : link

—