Elizabeth Gail Dobbs Johnson Lindsay is a fictional character in a series of Christian children's books written by Hilda Stahl.
Contents
Plot summary
Elizabeth Gail Dobbs is the daughter of Frank and Marie LaDere Dobbs. After Libby's father abandons her at the age of three, Marie becomes quite promiscuous, and has no patience with her daughter. Elizabeth is sent away through the foster care system and then subsequently returned to her mother. She eventually makes peace with her birth father, after he dies, as she receives a puzzle box in which he had hidden for her many special things, including a document which gives her a part of the deed of a ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills.
Usually, during her early life, she is returned to her mother so that she can receive state aid money to help raise her. As a result, she is derisively called "Aid Kid". The final straw comes when her abusive mother locks her in a closet after beating her with an extension cord. This forces the courts to put Marie under a restraining order and set the stage for removal of the child. During this time, Marie decides to leave the United States for Australia.
Gwen Miller, a social worker, takes Elizabeth Gail, sometimes called Libby, out of this violently abusive household, and brings her to a farm outside of the Midwestern town (unnamed) in which they lived. At this point, the books themselves begin.
She becomes the foster daughter of Charles and Vera Johnson. Charles, also called Chuck, is a farmer who also owns a store in the community, and Vera is a housewife. They already have three children of their own: oldest son Benjamin; daughter, Susan; and youngest son, Kevin.
Chuck's heart goes out to Elizabeth when he first sees her with her little suitcase trying to get back into town. He makes it clear that he will protect and love her. And he does throughout the entire series.
Later on in the books, Miss Miller, Libby's social worker married Luke Johnson, Chuck's widowed brother, and becomes her Aunt Gwen. Although she had been very uncooperative at times, Elizabeth dearly loved Gwen the best out of all her social workers. Prior to Gwen, Elizabeth had a social worker named Mrs. Blevins, who didn't much like any of her clients.
At first, Libby didn't know what to think. She has been in and out of the foster care system for so long and that made her on her guard. However, she somehow feels deep inside that she belonged at this one, and the family makes certain that she was. She soon realizes that what makes them different is their belief in God, and that they have prayed for her. They take on another foster child, Toby Smart, and after some fits and starts, Libby and Toby become family.
Elizabeth had a terrible fear of the Johnsons' pet goose, Goosy Poosy, who accidentally knocks her down when she first arrives at the Johnsons' farm. As she grows older, however, she gets over her fear of him and grows to love Goosy Poosy, who is actually very friendly.
Her mother returns from Australia and enlists the help of Libby's new, rather vicious social worker, a Ms. Marla Kremeen, to take Libby from her new home, and back into a life of unhappiness and abuse. Fortunately this fails, thanks to the help of her maternal grandmother, who has a lot of animosity towards Marie and seemingly towards Libby, who writes letters to her frequently anyway after finding her in the same town her adopted grandparents live in. Cowed by Libby's real grandmother, Marie signs the papers, allowing the Johnsons to adopt her daughter. Up until that time, she had flat-out refused to sign the papers, as she wished to use her to get aid money.
However, not long after she is adopted, Marie enlists the help of her equally promiscuous and conniving sister, Phyllis LaDere, to kidnap Elizabeth. When Chuck and the police in Chicago come to her rescue, Marie, Phyllis and the male companions who had connived with them to kidnap Elizabeth, had all disappeared, emptying the house as well. This spells the end of Marie Dobbs and any other attempts to separate Elizabeth and the Johnsons.
As she becomes more and more part of the family, and becoming part of their home and religious life, she becomes a better person. The values which the Johnsons instill in her become a part of her, and we see her grow spiritually as she accepts Christ as her Saviour. All the while, she makes friends, and also finds some enemies.
At first, the Johnsons' neighbors' daughter, Brenda Wilkens, hates Libby and is jealous of Libby's relationship with Ben, not understanding the situation. Libby, at first a person who clearly knows how to fight, due to being exposed to abuse most of her life, breaks her nose. As she matures however, she stops lashing out physically. Some time later, she and Brenda become friends as she helps Brenda to accept the Lord. Eventually, Brenda grows up and marries a minister.
Elizabeth also has another rival in rich and snobby Joanne Tripper. Brown-nosing Joanne makes clear her disdain of Elizabeth and her friends and family, though, in particular, Libby, because of her jealousy of her talent at concert piano. Unlike Brenda, Joanne never becomes a part of Libby's group of friends.
Elizabeth dreamed of playing concert piano from the moment she first sees the piano in the Johnsons' living room, and takes lessons first from Vera and later from a famous pianist named Rachael Avery, who left the concert tour after she married and now teaches piano. This irritates the arrogant Joanne who thinks that Aid Kids shouldn't take piano lessons. This is mainly because Joanne herself has trouble getting a place with Rachael. Yet Elizabeth proves her wrong and plays a wonderful concert piano, although Joanne is her chief rival through the rest of the book series.
In fact, many of her friends are from the foster care system that she finally gets out of. Chief among these is Jerry Grosbeck, whom she despises at first because of their acrimonious history together, but then is his girlfriend when they are in high school; he then marries Elizabeth's adopted sister, Susan Johnson, making him and Elizabeth in-laws.
Her best friend is a girl named Jill Noteboom, who is an aspiring writer. Jill eventually succeeds in this vocation, and she also eventually marries her best friend's adopted brother, Ben. Jill gives birth to their son, Matthew, near the end of the series.
She is also close friends to identical twins April and May Brakie, who had been in a foster home where the husband, a man named Morris Stern, has sexually abused both May and Elizabeth. Sadly, no one believes May or Elizabeth, and it takes Chuck to finally get someone to believe the girls. Eventually, Morris and Evelyn Stern moved out of the community, and until a new Christian family takes the twins in, they stay with Elizabeth and her family.
Elizabeth is also close to Grandma Feuder an elderly neighbor who lives nearby. She and Elizabeth become close and she gives her loving advice that helps her when she is confused about things. Grandma eventually dies, but wills a teddy bear that she loves very much to Elizabeth, who keeps it.
As time goes on, the children all grow up. Eventually, April marries Adam Feuder, the grandson of Grandma Feuder who is also a close friend of Elizabeth's; and May marries Brenda Wilkens' older brother, Joe.
While she is at Maddox School of Music, Elizabeth meets Badden Lindsay, a concert pianist who is in demand at the time. During this time, she discovers that her look-alike cousin, Tammy LaDere, is actually her half-sister (their father, Frank Dobbs, had had an affair with both Marie and her sister, Phyllis). Tammy's mother wants her to marry into money (for Phyllis's own selfish reasons), and when she refuses to do so, her mother furiously disowned her.
As a result of her aunt's actions, Tammy became a Christian and bonds with Elizabeth. Their similar troubles help them bond. To Elizabeth, Tammy is her sister, and that her family was now Tammy's family as well. As such, the Johnsons help her with the same kind of love and compassion that Elizabeth herself had received when she became a part of the Johnson family.
Tammy later marries Nolen Brown, a ranch hand at the Sandhill Ranch in Nebraska that Frank has left to Libby, and which she then shares with her half-sister. Tammy remains in Nebraska for her wedding and then lives with Nolen and their family there.
Then, during a time when Badden is recuperating at the Johnson farm from a long concert tour, he falls in love with Elizabeth, and soon after, they, too, are married and they become a concert piano team. Tammy returns from Nebraska to attend her half-sister's wedding, with everyone in her life in attendance, except her mother, Marie, who does send her best and wishes her well.
The little Aid Kid who started out with absolutely nothing except hate, abuse and pain in her life, with the Johnson family and God's help, gets everything she had ever dreamed of, and more.
Family
The original books
Published in 1978, these are the original Elizabeth Gail books. There were also three other editions, published in 1989, 1992 and a re-vamped series in 2001.
- Elizabeth Gail and the Mystery at the Johnson Farm
- Elizabeth Gail and the Secret Box
- Elizabeth Gail and the Teddy Bear Mystery
- Elizabeth Gail and the Dangerous Double
- Elizabeth Gail and the Trouble at Sandhill Ranch
- Elizabeth Gail and the Strange Birthday Party
- Elizabeth Gail and the Terrifying News
- Elizabeth Gail and the Frightened Runaways
- Elizabeth Gail and Trouble from the Past
- Elizabeth Gail and the Silent Piano
- Elizabeth Gail and Double Trouble
- Elizabeth Gail and the Holiday Mystery
- Elizabeth Gail and the Missing Love Letters
- Elizabeth Gail and the Music Camp Romance
- Elizabeth Gail and the Handsome Stranger
- Elizabeth Gail and the Secret Love
- Elizabeth Gail and the Summer for Weddings
- Elizabeth Gail and the Time for Love
- Elizabeth Gail and the Great Canoe Conspiracy
- Elizabeth Gail and the Mystery of the Hidden Key
- Elizabeth Gail and the Secret of the Gold Charm
The new books
These books published in 2001 have different titles in some cases, with some books eliminated entirely. Other differences are that they have covers with a photo on them instead of an illustration, and that they are in chronological order, unlike the first editions where books 19, 20 and 21 were about Libby's life about 10 years before book 18.
- Elizabeth Gail: Mystery at Johnson Farm
- Elizabeth Gail: The Secret Box
- Elizabeth Gail: The Disappearance (previously: Teddy Bear Mystery)
- Elizabeth Gail: The Dangerous Double
- Elizabeth Gail: Secret of the Gold Charm
- Elizabeth Gail: The Fugitive (previously: Great Canoe Conspiracy)
- Elizabeth Gail: Trouble at Sandhill Ranch
- Elizabeth Gail: Mystery of the Hidden Key
- Elizabeth Gail: The Uninvited Guests (previously: Strange Birthday Party)
- Elizabeth Gail: The Unexpected Letter (previously: Terrifying News)
- Elizabeth Gail: Hiding Out (previously: Frightened Runaways)
- Elizabeth Gail: Trouble from the Past
Films
The first book in the original series, Elizabeth Gail and the Mystery at the Johnson Farm, was translated into a slightly-under-feature-length film in the early 1990s by Tyndale Christian Video. The story focuses on Libby's realization that she is capable of loving and of being loved, in spite of mysterious happenings that threaten to shatter her chance at happiness.
A modern-day retelling of this family classic was undertaken by The Greens between 2007 and 2010. It is currently in post-production, with a straight-to-DVD release aimed at the 2010 holiday season.