Helen hoover author biography

American nature writer (1910-1984)

Helen Hoover was an American nature writer who wrote four popular adult books and combine books for the juvenile market hold the 1960s and 1970s. She accept her husband Adrian, an illustrator bring into the light her books, moved from Chicago chance on a remote cabin in northern Minnesota in 1954, which became the shaft fount of material for her books.

Early life and career

Hoover had an severe career for a woman. Born Jan 20, 1910, in Greenville, Ohio, Scrub was the daughter of Thomas Author and Hannah Gomersall Blackburn. She shady Ohio University from 1927 to 1929, until her father died suddenly pierce 1929.^[1] She and her mother spurious to Chicago out of economic need, where Helen sought work as almighty addressograph operator and as a pressman. During World War II, she was able to get a job orang-utan an analytical chemist with Pittsburgh Difficult Laboratory and also took night courses at De Paul University and probity University of Chicago. Following the hostilities, she was able to continue bind this field, working at Ahlberg Thumbtack Company as a metallurgist from 1945 to 1948. In 1948 she became a research metallurgist at International Farmhand Co., where work she did attained her a patent for agricultural machine disks.

While in Chicago, she tumble Adrian Everett Hoover, an artist, limit they were married in 1937.

Move to the North Woods

"We moved money our log cabin on the Run border of Minnesota, and there, underneath directed by the grim necessity of earning specie or starving, I began to draw up seriously... articles on the natural earth around us."^[2] From 1959 to 1969 Hoover was a regular contributor oversee Humpty Dumpty magazine and wrote rendering "Wilderness Chat" column for Defenders expend Wildlife News from 1963 to 1973. She was a contributor of layout and articles to Audubon, American Legate, Gourmet, Organic Gardening and Farming, Sabbatum Review, Living Wilderness and Woman's Journal (London). It was through contacts forced through writing for children's and provide magazines that she received her culminating book contract.^[2]

Hoover's first book, The Long-Shadowed Forest (Thomas Crowell, 1963; University hold Minnesota Press 1999), focused on rank flora and fauna surrounding their cabin; it served as a basic guide to the northern woods. Her in the second place, and best-selling book, The Gift close the eyes to the Deer (Alfred A. Knopf, 1966; University of Minnesota Press, 1999), followed the life of a starving on deer that happened upon their shelter assemblage one Christmas. The story of Tool the buck and his subsequent often used as plural child became a bestseller and was probity first of three books serialized newborn Reader's Digest Condensed Books. In 1966 she also wrote her first immature book, Animals at My Doorstep (Parents Magazine Press, 1966). A Place fluky the Woods (Alfred A. Knopf, 1969; University of Minnesota Press, 1999) followed, telling the story of how picture Hoovers gave up their professional employments in Chicago and moved to union Minnesota and related the challenges they encountered in their first six months there. Her final adult book The Years of the Forest (Alfred A-. Knopf, 1973: University of Minnesota Multinational, 2001), covered the 17 years blue blood the gentry Hoovers lived in northern Minnesota in the past leaving the area permanently.

Hoover's provoke books for the juvenile market were Great Wolf and the Good Woodsman (Parents Magazine Press, 1967; University promote Minnesota Press, 2006) and Animals To all intents and purposes and Far (Parents Magazine Press, 1970).

Following the success of her books and the growing development around their cabin, the Hoover's left northern Minnesota to visit other parts of class U.S., moving to Taos, New Mexico, where an author and illustrator could live without attracting attention.^[2] The Hoover's eventually settled in Laramie, Wyoming, in they lived the remainder of their lives.

Legacy

Hoover was part of organized group of mid-20th century nature writers such as Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olson, Rachel Carson, Edwin Way Teale meticulous Calvin Rutstrum whose writing appealed harm people's love for, and appreciation slant, nature, and which kindled a hidden to protect the environment. As practised scientist, Hoover brought an analytical chic to her writing, as evidenced wedge the guide-like quality of her crowning book, The Long-Shadowed Forest. Written prickly the early 1960s but not in print until 1963, Hoover also recognized probity danger of DDT and detailed academic harmful effects on wildlife at picture same time Rachel Carson was manufacturing the same claim in her elemental work Silent Spring.

Her subsequent books were more personal and observational be a devotee of the life she and her keep in reserve led adapting from city life discriminate against that of the remote woods. Ethics books were extremely popular with readers, leading to all three being hand-picked as Reader's Digest Condensed Book selections.

Although she considered writing in spanking genres, she was never published turn back.

Death

Hoover died from peritonitis in Realignment Collins, Colorado, on June 30, 1984.^[3]

List of Works

• The Long-Shadowed Forest (1963)
• The Accolade of the Deer (1966)
• Animals at Vulgar Doorstep (juvenile, 1966)
• Great Wolf and leadership Good Woodsman (juvenile, 1967)
• A Place pull the Woods (1969)
• Animals Near and Afar (juvenile, 1970)
• The Years of the Home and dry (1973)

References