Onions in the Stew

Title: Onions in the Stew
Genre: Autobiography/Humor
Author: Betty MacDonald (1907-1958)
Illustrator: Roy Pollak
Publisher: J. P. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Year: 1955 (first edition)
Pages: 256
Format: Hardback, with dust jacket.
Provenance: Protective covering on dust jacket; previous owner’s name written in ink on inside back cover; rubber stamped “50” on top and bottom.
From the Dusk Jacket: “The island of Vashon is in Puget Sound off Seattle, and is famous for its gooseberries, goat’s milk, butter clams and orchids, and most of all the MacDonald family—Betty with husband Don and her bevy of teen-age daughters (only two, but they sometimes seem like ten).”
Dedication: “For Joan and Jerry and Anne and Bob — our best friends.”
Opening Sentence: “For twelve years we MacDonalds have been living on an island in Puget Sound.”
Random Passage: “From then on Anne and Joan and all their little female friends spent at least one third of their lives rolling their hair into the small snail curls. Over the snails they tied bandannas of different kinds—one year dishtowels, one year men’s bandannas, one year woolen scarves, one year enormous silk squares. The strange thing was that except for special occasions such as the Friday night dances, SqueeGee formals and Junior Proms, we never ever saw these curls unfurled. Their hair was pinned up when they left for school, it was pinned up again the minute they got home.”
Goodreads Review: “Some people have comfort food. I have comfort books and this one is near the top of the list. I love Betty MacDonald and this is my favorite of all of her hilarious books. I probably read this book about every 12-18 months. She makes me laugh out loud and I only wish I could write half as well.” — Nancy Loe, August 3, 2007.
Notes: Onions in the Stew was the fourth and final humorous autobiography from Betty MacDonald, who rose to fame with The Egg and I. That 1946 book dealt with Betty and her brood’s adventures on a chicken farm in rural Washington state. It was subsequently adapted as a successful film which later begat the ”Ma and Pa Kettle” series.