The Abbott family are “summer people” at Ocean Park on the Washington Island Peninsula. Wealthy and accustomed to summering at the seashore, they employ a “girl” and generally keep themselves separate from the local population on the Peninsula. At home in Portland, Oregon, they have horses and carriages, important friends, fine silk dresses, a pet pony, and all the comforts a wealthy dry goods business can provide. Mama was raised in a wealthy family, and her only training in life was to become the wife of a wealthy businessman. When the floods of 1894 bankrupt Papa’s business, the Abbotts are unprepared for their new way of life. In Sarah and Me and the Lady From the Sea, Patricia Beatty has written a lovely story about a family learning how to take care of themselves and each other. 

“I’m Marcella, the oldest of three Abbott children. At twelve I’d learned that the world could sometimes be a place where wicked things happened to a person who didn’t deserve them to happen – like having your pet bird get loose and get caught by a neighbor’s cat or your horse breaking a leg and getting shot or getting the mumps the day before you were going on a school picnic. But bankers and hearts?”

For every summer that Marcella could remember, her family would stay at Grandfather and Grandmother Grover’s summer house on the Peninsula. When her grandparents died, they willed the house to the Abbotts. Since then, Mother, Marcella, Florence, and Alec had continued to spend the summer in the house. Papa would come up with them at the beginning of the summer to get them situated and then return to Portland to attend to his business. At the end of the summer, Papa would return to help them close up the house until the next year. 

When this story opens, Mother receives a letter from Papa that he won’t be returning to pick them up. Instead, he instructs the family to stay on the Peninsula for the foreseeable future. The bankers have called in his debts from the floods of 1894 and, in an effort to save their business, he has been forced to sell their home (and most of their belongings). To save on rent, for the next year, Papa will live with his sister and brother-in-law. Since the summer house was willed to them, the Mother and the children can live there. The only problem is that they cannot afford any help, and Mother and the children have no idea how to even start the fire in the stove, let alone cook meals and wash clothes. Mother insists that this will be an adventure. 

In a style reminiscent of Hilda van Stockum or Alta Halverson Seymour, this story celebrates family life and friendship. The Abbotts do make friends on the Peninsula, and they do learn how to take care of themselves. More importantly, they learn important things about themselves and what they are truly capable of. This was a very enjoyable and quick read that would ideally suit our middle-grade readers. Girls of 8-14 might particularly enjoy this one. 

I purchased this book from a used book site because it is out of print. It can be read for free on Internet Archive, here.