Maudie Mason

Maude (Maudie) Mason was the protagonist, and narrator, of the “Maudie stories” and “Maudie books” written by American authors Graeme and Sarah Lorimer in the 1930s and ’40s, and of the radio show “Maudie’s Diary”, which aired in 1941-42. The stories, which featured romantic schemes, contemporary slang, and witty banter, revolved around the adventures, tribulations, loves, and losses of an American teenage girl.

Biographical

Maudie's full name is Maude Worthington Benevolence Mason, but she keeps that a secret because “even I could never live it down.”[1]: 116  She lives in[2]: 190  or near Philadelphia[3]: 79 [1]: 117–8  with her parents and—for a while—her older sister, Sylvia.[3][4] In Men Are Like Street Cars, she is sixteen.[3]: 202  In Stag Line, she is seventeen.[2]: 178  She is eighteen in Heart Specialist,[1]: 211  “practically a grown-up”,[1]: 228  and remembers being “a naïve child of sixteen.”[1]: 171  She is 18[5]: 75  or 19[5]: 115 and anticipates her next birthday (in May) in First Love, Farewell.[5]: 270  Many young adults come into Maudie's life, but the most constant presence is her friend, David[5]: 40  (Davy) Dillon,[3]: 5  with whom there are recurring romantic possibilities;[6][5]: 171–2  she strings him along, but seems to settle on him more seriously late in the series.[5]: 285  She has a comfortable upper-middle class life,[4] and spends much of her time in romantic schemes and manipulations,[7] sometimes joined by such friends as Pauline.[5]: 125  She says Davy has suspected her motives since she was 11.[5]: 45 

Numerous facts about Maudie and her family are disclosed in the course of the series, some of them showing the inconsistency of a serial work. Maudie is blonde,[3][1]: 189  and proud of it;[1]: 95  she weighs 110 pounds (50 kg).[5]: 229  Maudie's friends include Alix (her best female friend),[5]: 188  Julie Purviance,[5]: 189  who “has just about as much brains as beauty” (not much),[5]: 157  Pauline (Pauly) Howard,[5]: 180  and Mary Brandt and her brother Bill.[5]: 224  Maudie's father is called variously Dick[1]: 186  and Franklin.[5]: 109  He is on the board (possibly the chair[5]: 130 ) of Memorial Hospital.[5]: 112  Her mother's name is not revealed. Maudie's sister Sylvia marries Jerry,[2]: 32  who is pointedly not a native Philadelphian.[2]: 242 

Davy has an older sister, Ting.[3]: 54  His car is nicknamed the Fallen Arch,[2]: 137 [1]: 273  and he manages his school boxing team.[2]: 69  He later goes to “the university” (presumably Penn),[1]: 3  where he manages the tennis team[1]: 28  and is probably a year or two older than Maudie.[8] Maudie has a cousin Joy from Baltimore, who visits and causes problems.[3]: 26  Her other relatives include an Aunt Esther and Uncle Arthur in Philadelphia,[2]: 226  and Aunts Rachel[2]: 282  and Benevolence.[5]: 143  Her godfather, “Uncle Ned” Chace,[5]: 106  lives in Chicago after doing “something awful”,[1]: 188–89  but redeems himself and reappears later.[5]: 78 

Maudie worries about "unfair discrimination against women"[2]: 277  and observes that "it's all right to have a mind if you use it to tell a man how wonderful he is."[5]: 104  Nevertheless, she opines that "A girl owes it to herself to occasionally get a man into a jam, but she owes it to him to always get him out."[5]: 181  She has a parody version of "The Star-Spangled Banner",[1]: 12  and is a Republican.[1]: 115  She is not much for books, “as personally I prefer to live life than to read about it.”[1]: 170  She is quick with snappy banter,[1]: 170 : 299  read Little Black Sambo as a child,[1]: 264  and has an appendectomy.[5]: 120  She has a coming-out garden party[1]: 273  in June;[1]: 283  she is the first girl in “our crowd” to have one.[1]: 286  She had a crush on “Baldy” Baldridge, a steeplechase rider, “for years”.[5]: 4–5 

Background and development

Graeme and Sarah Lorimer were a husband-and-wife author team, “two members of Philadelphia main line society”, who married in 1926 and had four children of their own.[9] They specialized in literary works in the romantic comedy theme, such as “The Plot Sickens” and “Feature for June”, which Graeme co-write with Eileen Tighe and which was adapted as the movie June Bride.[4] Graeme Lorimer was the fiction editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal[4] and the son of George Horace Lorimer, long-time editor of The Saturday Evening Post.[10][9] Sarah Lorimer was the daughter of Frank H. Moss, a Philadelphia housing developer and mortgage banker.[11]

The Lorimers wrote at least 36 short stories featuring “Maudie” for the Ladies’ Home Journal in the 1930s and 1940s.[4][9] According to family tradition, Graeme devised the plots, and Sarah provided the dialogue.[12] Many of the characters and situations came from the authors’ own lives and those of their friends, who formed the basis of a number of the characters and story lines.[9] Sarah Lorimer's brother, Hunter Moss, and his wife Dora were the inspiration for Sylvia and Jerry, and Graeme Lorimer borrowed at least one of his younger brothers’ entanglements for a plot.[9] When they ran low on their own witty banter, the Lorimers offered to pay teens they knew for any wisecracks that got published.[9] They were sufficiently successful that Life magazine called them “lexicographers to the independent young American female.”[13]

The books are structured by episodic chapters, each a story in itself and with little connection between them; they are essentially reprints of the magazine stories.[14] Some of the stories were adapted for the stage by the Lorimers and others.[9][15][16]

Books
  • Men Are Like Street Cars (1934); dedicated “to Hunter and his crowd”
  • Stag Line (1934); dedicated to Hugh MacNair Kahler
  • Heart Specialist (1935); dedicated to Frank H. Moss
  • First Love, Farewell (1940)

Reviews

In its assessment of the series, Kirkus Reviews called Maudie, "The perfect sub-deb, of the 1930s" and opined the books would appeal to "young people as well as adults."[17] Another review mentioned the stories had "gay flavor" and "spontaneity".[18] Kirkus' review of Heart Specialist said its stories "are irrespressible, bubbling over with good humor and a keen appreciation of the mirth and the pathos, the drama and the imaginative qualities of the sub deb, 1935 edition. And what an ear for the lingo they have. Ask your young fry what they think of them."[19]

Maudie’s Diary

The books' popularity gave rise to a radio series, Maudie’s Diary. The show, described as a “juvenile comedy”, began August 14, 1941, airing at 7:30 p.m. on Thursdays on CBS. Albert G. Miller wrote the scripts; the show starred Mary Mason as Maudie and Robert Walker as Davy. Betty Garde and Bill Johnstone played Maudie's parents, and Marjorie Davies portrayed her sister, Sylvia. In July 1942, the network replaced the pregnant Mary Mason with Charita Bauer;[4] the program was canceled September 24 of that year.[20]: 442–43 [21]

Each episode of the program began, and ended, with Maudie reading an entry from her diary. This opened into, or wound up, each story presented. The story lines revolved around the characters’ difficulties with such adolescent concerns as dates, cars, allowances, homework, annoying siblings, and meddlesome relatives.[4][22][20]: 442–443  One episode, involving learning to play the trombone, was included in the annual anthology, “Best Broadcasts of 1940-41.”[23] The program was sponsored by Continental Baking Company; Wonder Bread and Hostess Cakes featured in some promotional literature.[24]

References
  1. Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, Heart Specialist, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1935.
  2. Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, Stag Line, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1934.
  3. Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, Men Are Like Street Cars, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1934.
  4. Jack French, “Mary Mason, Star of Maudie’s Diary”, Radio Recall, Metropolitan Washington Old Time Radio Club, October 2008; accessed 2015.09.11.
  5. Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, First Love Farewell, Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1940.
  6. E.g., Men Are Like Street Cars, pp. 187, 217; Stag Line, pp. 44-45, Heart Specialist, pp. 89, 240 (since she was 12), 243 (loved him my whole life), 275 (“faithful to Davy since I was twelve except for occasional exceptions”)
  7. E.g., Heart Specialist, p. 29.
  8. He is a sophomore (Heart Specialist p. 38) when she is 18 (Heart Specialist p. 121).
  9. Vesta Kelling, “Slangsters of Subdebese Put Their Maudie On Air: ‘You Reprobate’ Is Not Criticism, It Is Really ‘Pouring On the Roses’”, The Milwaukee Journal, Sep. 12, 1941, “Green Sheet” p. 1.
  10. George Horace Lorimer family papers, Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Georgia; accessed 2015.09.12.
  11. Michael M. van Beuren. “Sarah M. Lorimer (Moss)”; accessed 2015.09.12.
  12. See also Kelling, op.cit. (recounting that Sarah’s first try was rejected: it was funny, but the plot too complicated; Graeme suggested dropping the plot, and the story was published).
  13. “Subdebese: America’s Teen-Age Girls Speak Language of Their Own That Is Too Divinely Super”, Life, Jan. 27, 1941, p. 78.
  14. Compare, e.g., “A Mighty Man Was He”, in the July 1940 Journal with "A Mighty Man Was He", Chapter 4 of First Love, Farewell, or “Davy-Galahad”, November 1939, with Chap. 7 of First Love Farewell.
  15. Kristin Sergel, Maudie and the Opposite Sex: from the Maudie Stories by Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, 1955.
  16. E.g., “Men Are Like Streetcars” (sometimes known as “It Couldn’t Happen To a Nicer Girl”) book by Graeme and Sarah Lorimer, stage play by Christopher Sergel;
  17. Kirkus review, July 15, 1938.
  18. Kirkus review, Acquittal, Feb. 18, 1937.
  19. Kirkus review, 1935.
  20. Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Revised ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. pp. 442–443. ISBN 978-0-19-507678-3. Retrieved 2019-10-04.
  21. Terrace, Vincent (1999). Radio Programs, 1924-1984: A Catalog of More Than 1800 Shows (republished 2015 ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 221. ISBN 9781476605289. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  22. Jack French, “Maudie’s Diary”, Old Radio Times, December 2007; accessed 2015.10.20.
  23. Max Wylie, ed., Best Broadcasts of 1940-41, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1942. [part of it: http://paulrhymer.net/etext/bestbroadcasts1940-41.pdf Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine].
  24. “Maudie's Diary”, In Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Robert Walker; accessed 2015.09.11.
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