By Jack French © 2010
BACKGROUND: Radio Spirits, Inc. is a firm in New Jersey that markets old-time radio programs in boxed CD sets and I am one of several free lance authors who write the booklets accompanying these sets. On occasion, some of their company officials are at the same nostalgia conventions with me. At the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Maryland in 2010, I was presenting a program on “Nancy’s Sister Sleuths.” One of the Radio Spirits officials, David McLaughlin, told me that I should talk to his Aunt Grace since she had worked for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I agreed and he put me in contact with her in Florida. I spoke with her on the telephone several times and exchanged correspondence. Those contacts are the basis of this article.
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She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1920. The fiction factory created by Edward Stratemeyer was then in its second decade and that year it brought out new books in each of the twenty-one series it owned. By the time Grace Ottilie Kleine was six years old, the Stratemeyer Syndicate had become one of the most successful small businesses in the entire country, dominating the juvenile fiction market. And the Syndicate did all of this with about ten full time employees and a small, revolving cadre of ghost writers. In 1926, the American Library Association conducted a survey of 36,000 kids in 34 cities to identify their favorite book and 98% of them named a Stratemeyer title, including Ruth Fielding, The Bobbsey Twins, Dorothy Dale, and Tom Swift.
Little did Grace suspect as a youngster that she would eventually become an integral part of this fabulous fiction factory. Like many children her age, she read some of the Syndicate books, including The Hardy Boys (the series had begun in 1927) but Grace’s ambitions were to become a teacher, a writer, and perhaps an actress. It is a tribute to her talent, grit, and hard work that she eventually accomplished all three goals.
After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Cincinnati in her home town, where she received her BA in English in 1942 and her BE in Education the following year. She taught school for a few years in Ohio and did a little writing and acting in her spare time. Toward the end of WW II, she pulled up stakes in the Midwest and moved to New York, with the expectation of trading her teaching career for one in writing and acting.
She met a fellow instructor, Donald Grote, who taught physics at a NJ high school in Bloomfield, and they fell in love. They were married in 1954 and about six years later, he inadvertently provided her access to a full time job with the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Her husband was contacted about 1960 through his school by Harriet Adams, who had taken over the reins at the fiction factory. (Her father, the founder, passed away in 1930, only ten days after he had launched the Nancy Drew series.) Harriet was looking for someone to create scientific inventions for use in the Tom Swift, Jr. series.
NOTE: The original Tom Swift series, written under the syndicate owned pseudonym of Victor Appleton, ended its 31 year run in 1941 when Tom got married. Harriet resurrected the scientific family in the Tom Swift, Jr. series in 1954, written by “Victor Appleton II.” This latter author was actually James “Jim” Lawrence, who also wrote some of The Hardy Boys books.
Donald accepted Harriet’s offer and created several new scientific inventions (which were futuristic but possible) which were incorporated into Tom Swift, Jr.’s adventures. He was paid on a contract basis for each “invention” and Grace decided to try for a job at the Syndicate also. At the time, she was modestly successful as a writer and actor, and through her stage work, she had been accepted into Actors’ Equity Association, a union of professional actors and stage managers. But she thought a job at the Stratemeyer fiction factory would be a good career move. Once again, she was correct.
She wrote an outline for a Hardy Boys book and submitted it to Harriet, who shortly thereafter called her in for a job interview. To Grace’s delight, she was hired and became a staff writer for the Stratemeyer Syndicate, starting at $99 a week; it was 1960 and she would remain an employee in that office for the next fourteen years.
During that period, the Syndicate was regularly producing books for ten different series, or roughly half of their output of the ‘30s. The Bobbsey Twins (debuted in 1904) was still going strong as were two teen detectives series (Nancy Drew since 1930 and The Hardy Boys since 1927.) In addition, this fiction factory was regularly turning out new books in seven other series: The Dana Girls, The Happy Hollisters, Christopher Cool, Tolliver Adventure Series (which ended with volume #3), Honey Bunch and Norman, Bret King and Linda Craig. The latter two were discontinued in 1964, although Linda was brought back in 1981, after Grace had left the Syndicate.
The Hardy Boys outline Grace had originally written was expanded into their series book “The Clue of the Screeching Owl” (#40) and eventually released in 1962. But Grace did not have the honor of writing the book; that task had been assigned to a young ghost writer, James Buechler. They also combined on the rewriting of two earlier Hardy Boys books: “The Hidden Harbor Mystery” (#14) released in 1961 and “While the Clock Ticked” (#11), re-released in 1962 with Grace contributing the new outlines and Buechler writing the revised manuscript.
The Sixties and Seventies were periods of extensive revisions of many of the Stratemeyer Syndicate books originally written decades before. Many things were changed in these revisions: ethnic slurs, hackneyed dialogue, particularly by minorities, obsolescent equipment and transportation, and similar items. Some revisions were relatively minor, but some were so much of an overhaul that all that remained of the original book were the leading characters, the title of the book, and the sequence number in the series. Grace recalled that in the original version of one of The Bobbsey Twins the only thing the two sets of twins did was go on a picnic so that book was obviously rewritten to incorporate a great deal more in terms of adventure. Another consideration in the rewriting was to make the books shorter, an economy measure requested by the publisher, Grosset & Dunlap.
During most of her years at the Stratemeyer office, which at that time was located in the Hale Building in East Orange, NJ (a structure which no longer exists) Grace was one of a total of about ten full-time employees. Harriet Adams was in absolute charge of the office and virtually every series. Her sister Edna, who had been active with the Syndicate in earlier days, had moved to Florida and was seldom seen in New Jersey, except for occasional Stratemeyer social functions. But from a business standpoint, Edna still owned the same percentage of the firm that Harriet did, 37 and a half %, while Andrew E. Svenson held the remaining 25%. Andy was Harriet’s #1 assistant, and under the name of Jerry West, wrote The Happy Hollisters series (which was illustrated by Helen S. Hamilton). That series was one of the few Syndicate works that was not published by Grosset & Dunlap; the earlier ones were published by Garden City and the latter ones by Doubleday. As Andy’s assistant, Grace contributed to several books in The Happy Hollisters but she only was responsible for writing the outline and manuscript for one of that series, #30, “The Mystery of the Golden Witch.”
Harriet’s private secretary was Laurie Rickel, a very competent woman who knew the business well. However she was generally confined to the office so when Harriet needed some outside research to be done regarding a geographical region or a certain industry for use in an upcoming series book, Harriet would take another staffer, June M. Dunn, with her on these trips. Grace sometimes went with June on research trips, i.e. James Bay in Canada and the Pennsylvania “Dutch Country” as well as being sent on her own, frequently on very short notice, and these included a western gold mine, Quebec, and Death Valley.
The other employees in the office were secretaries: Jocelyn Starzyk, who functioned as Chief Steno, and two other women, who did only secretarial and typing work: Lynn Ealer and Margie Flynn. This trio was industrious, trustworthy, and cordial. With the exception of Lynn and Margie, virtually everyone else in the office shared in the production of most of the series books, in one way or another. A number of people could be involved in the initial planning of a new book, writing the outline (generally 1-3 pages provided to the ghost writer), editing manuscripts, as well as revising earlier books, etc.
While Harriet was the final arbitrator on all decisions on the series books, she encouraged the participation of all the office in some aspects. Points of the plots would be discussed within the office, along the lines of “Well, you’d know how kids think . . . how would they respond to this situation?” The choice of titles received the input of the whole office, each trying to come up with a catchy title that would sell the most books. Even the proposed book covers were shown to the whole office and how well they portrayed a scene from the book would be debated.
The ghost writers, scattered throughout the United States, principally on the East Coast or in California, seldom came to the office and many never did. They received their outlines by mail and sent their manuscripts in the same way. Required revisions were handled in the office by a staff employee designated by Harriet.
NOTE: While I have used the term “ghost writers” throughout this article, they were never referred to as that in the Stratemeyer office. They were always called just “writers.” While they rotated from time to time during Grace’s 14 years there, there were seldom more than six of them under contract at any given period.
With the exception of Grace’s research trips, her hours at the firm were a regular eight hour day. In addition to her writing assignments in the office, she also conducted market research at Harriet’s request by visiting local book retailers to see how they were shelving Syndicate series books. At one such store, Grace discovered that all of her firm’s books were placed in locations in the very back of the store, while other juvenile and adventure books were prominently displayed in the front sections. She expressed her concern to the store manager who assured her: “Your books are in high demand by most of the youngsters who come in here and they find your books wherever I put them. So I put the less popular books in the front to try to balance out my sales.”
Grace’s duties with the Syndicate kept her so busy, she had to give up her stage acting and let her membership in Actors’ Equity lapse. By the mid-60s she had taken over from June Dunn the role of primary writer on The Bobbsey Twins series. (“Leelo” Wuenn became Andy’s new assistant on The Happy Hollisters.) Grace wrote the outlines and the manuscripts for volumes #60 through 65 of that series. They were edited by Harriet and published from 1967 to 1972. Grace also wrote the outlines for the next two volumes (#66 and 67) but Andy wrote the manuscripts. In addition to these new Bobbsey Twins books, Grace was part of the team that was busy rewriting the early releases of that series. Volumes #11 through 20 were extensively rewritten during an eight year period beginning in 1963. Grace either wrote the new outline or manuscript or helped in the editing of about five of those books, including writing both the outline and revised manuscript of #18 and 19.
She also worked on outlines and manuscripts for revised versions in other series. In addition to assisting in the rewriting of The Hardy Boys (as set forth above) she also was on the team that rewrote three of the earlier Nancy Drew mysteries. Grace did revisions to the manuscript of volume #10, then with Harriet wrote the outline for #11, and also completed the outline and manuscript for #5 (“The Secret at Shadow Ranch.”)
Grace always found Harriet to be a firm but fair boss. Harriet justifiably felt very protective about the Stratemeyer creations and she was upset with the claims of some of her former ghost writers who went public, starting in the 50s, by claiming to be the “author” of Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys books, etc. Grace concurred with Harriet then, as she does today, since those ghost writers did not create the characters, worked from a specific outline of chapter events, and then had their manuscripts edited by a Syndicate staffer. While they did “write the book,” the fact that they were using characters established by the Syndicate and working from a specific outline of the Syndicate would prevent them from claiming to be “the author.”
Harriet was generous and kind to all her employees. They were paid well, got regular raises, as well as bonus checks on their birthdays (which Harriet kept track of) plus holiday gifts. Harriet regularly hosted parties at her spacious, restored historical home on a working farm in the horse country of NJ and her employees were among the invited guests. There were office parties also; Halloween was usually celebrated there with the staff in costume. For one Halloween party, Harriet came attired as Alice in Wonderland, complete with blonde wig.
An affable supervisor, Harriet found it very difficult to fire the few employees who didn’t measure up or could not do the job. Grace recalled one middle-aged woman who was hired at the Syndicate and after a time, it became obvious that she was not able to do the assigned job and would have to be terminated. Instead of calling her into her office and firing her, Harriet and Andy took the incompetent employee to dinner and very gently told her they would no longer need her services. The woman’s pain was relieved somewhat by a very generous severance check which Harriet gave her. Months later, Grace found out that this woman was still having difficulty finding a job so Harriet was discreetly sending her occasional checks to help her.
Despite her satisfaction with her long term employment at the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Grace resigned in 1974 (the same year Edna died) in order to pursue freelance writing jobs and resurrect her acting career on the stage. Her husband died shortly thereafter, as did Andy in 1975, and Harriet asked Grace to come back to her old job. She declined Harriet’s offer and then enrolled in graduate school at Montclaire College where she earned her MA in Theatre in 1976. Grace rejoined Actors’ Equity and obtained roles in local stage productions, off-Broadway shows, and won roles at “The Whole Theatre” which was the stage of Olympia Dukakis and her repertory company.
Now approaching age 90, Grace is semi-retired in Florida where she lives with her little poodle “Noel.” She continues to be very active in local events and church work in her town where she is a respected member of the community. In 2009 she wrote a dialogue, performed publicly, about Charles Darwin on the 200th anniversary of his birth. Recently she was writing a regular column for The Sarasota Herald-Tribune entitled “Old Lady at Large” in which she poked fun at today’s zaniness and offered a mature perspective on regional events.
She still keeps in touch with the few Syndicate staffers who are still alive. And to new acquaintances, she loves to brag “I worked for the Syndicate for 14 years” and is delighted if they misunderstand and think Grace had worked for the Mafia.
ADDENDUM:
Books that Grace Grote wrote for the Stratemeyer Syndicate:
#60 Bobbsey Twins Mystery of the King’s Puppet 1967
#61 Bobbsey Twins and the Secret of Candy Castle 1968
#63 Bobbsey Twins and the Talking Fox Mystery 1970
#64 Bobbsey Twins and the Red, White and Blue Mystery 1971
#65 Bobbsey Twins Dr. Funnybone’s Secret 1972
#66 Bobbsey Twins and the Tagalong Giraffe 1973 (Grace wrote only the outline for this book)
#30 The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Golden Witch 1966
Books that Grace Grote revised, either solo, or as part of a team:
#13 Bobbsey Twins’ Visit to the Great West 1966
#14 Bobbsey Twins and the Cedar Camp Mystery 1967
#17 Bobbsey Twins’ Adventures with Baby May 1968
#18 Bobbsey Twins and the Play House Secret 1968
#19 Bobbsey Twins and the Four-Leaf Clover Mystery 1968
#20 Bobbsey Twins’ Mystery at Cherry Corners 1971
#11 The Hardy Boys: While the Clock Ticked 1962
#14 The Hardy Boys: Hidden Harbor Mystery 1961
#5 Nancy Drew: The Secret at Shadow Ranch 1965
#10 Nancy Drew: The Password to Larkspur Lane 1966
#11 Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket 1965
This article was originally published in The Whispered WATCHWORD, February 2011. Reprinted with permission from the French Family.
Corrections/Updates, May 2025 by Andrew Svenson III:
- Copyright releases for The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Golden Witch were signed by both Grace Grote and Andrew Svenson, indicating collaboration; Grace recalled in 2024 that she wrote “part” of the manuscript
- Lorraine “Lorry” Rickle was Harriet Adams’s assistant
- Lieselotte “Lilo” Wuenn was Andrew Svenson’s assistant
- Donald Grote died in 1973