After purchasing the freedom of other slaves, including his wife and her daughter, he moved to New Hampshire, where he operated a tannery for 20 years and became a respected member of the community.Ĭarolina's Courage (1964, 1989) records the adventures of a small girl during the long trip by covered wagon from New Hampshire to Nebraska Territory. Born the son of a king in Africa, Fortune lived as a slave in Massachusetts until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty. The earlier book presents a detailed picture of the shepherd's life the latter shows other farm activities, such as clearing brush and making maple syrup, and explores a growing boy's relationship with his father.Īmos Fortune, Free Man (1950, reissue 1989), the fictionalized biography of an obscure man of great strength and dignity, won the Newbery Medal in 1951 and the William Allen White Award in 1953. Mountain Born (1943), a Newbery honor book, and A Place for Peter (1952, latest reissue 1994), a Boys' Clubs of America gold medal winner, depict the quiet, pastoral life on a sheep farm. In Hue and Cry (1953, reprinted 1991), the same painter-farmer risks position and property 20 years later to befriend a disillusioned immigrant youth who has stolen a valuable horse. She has been a staff member at writers' conferences and has received several honorary degrees as well as the Sarah Josepha Hale Award (1970) for a 'distinguished author whose work and life reflect the literary tradition of New England.' In Patterns on the Wall (1943), which received the New York Herald Tribune Spring Festival Award, a kind-hearted itinerant painter who decorates rooms with stenciled designs is held responsible for the severe weather of 1816 and tried for witchcraft. Although her husband died in 1963, she has continued to live in New Hampshire, the setting of many of her works. Yates' The Lighted Heart (1960) tells of this part of her life. in 1939, bought a small farm in New Hampshire, restored a century-old farmhouse, and created a new life focused around her writing, his work for the blind, and the fields and woodlands they both enjoyed.

Because of her husband's failing eyesight, the couple returned to the U.S. Her first book was published in England in 1938. With her husband to London, where she continued her apprentice work, writing articles, book reviews, and short stories. After graduation from high school, she worked in New York City for three years, writing as much as possible. Long summers on her father's farm south of Buffalo were the most memorable days of Elizabeth Yates' childhood and youth.

Daughter of Harry and Mary Duffy Yates married William McGreal, 1929 (died 1963)

The Journeyman by Elizabeth Yates