Gertrude Chandler Warner, author of The Boxcar Children was born on this day in 1890. It turns out she was a first grade teacher who never actually finished high school herself (although she did study with a tutor–homeschooled?). The bio I read said she taught 40 first graders in the morning and another 40 in the afternoon. And today’s teachers think they have a hard job! She wrote her mystery stories for her first graders who were just learning to read. (Today they’re recommended for third graders–another example of how American education has declined.) At any rate, I can remember still how intriguing the thought was of living in an old abandoned boxcar with only other children and using one’s ingenuity to earn enough to get food and other necessities. It was all so very romantic and adventurous. I must have read the books when I was six or seven, and I know I wanted to be one of the Boxcar children.

John Millington Synge, b. 1871. Irish dramatist, poet, and folklorist. I read his play The Playboy of the Western World a long time ago for a class in modern drama, but I can’t say I remember much about it.

Grace Livingston Hill, b. 1865. I read a few of Ms. Hill’s novels when I was a young adult, but I didn’t really enjoy them very much. Others do.
Review of Rainbow Cottage by Grace Livingston Hill from The Headmistress of The Common Room.
Review of Because of Stephen by the same author, same reviewer.
Review of Maris, again same author, same reviewer.
Neat and Dainty As a Flower is a blog dedicated to “feminine beauty and accomplishment as seen in the works of Grace Livingston Hill.”
Brenda of Coffee Tea Books and Me and Sallie of A Gracious Home also enjoy Ms. Hill’s fiction. So, if you do there’s company for you.