Today's subject was born on 2 March 1904 in Springfield, MA. His emigrant German grandfather and his father were brewers. Our subject enrolled in Dartmouth in 1921, where he studied English and edited the college humor magazine. When he graduated, he told his father that he been awarded a fellowship to Oxford University. Dad reported this to the newspaper and our subject had to confess that Oxford had actually rejected his application. The embarrassed father scrapped enough funds to send the son to Oxford anyway.
At Lincoln College, a fellow American, Helen Marion Palmer, when she saw his drawings, suggested he become an artist instead. He decided to follow this course and went home where he married Miss Palmer in 1927. The next year he signed a contract which went on for 17 years to promote the "Flit" insecticide. He also worked with Ford Motor Company, NBC, and Holly Sugar.
His attempt in 1937 to publish a child's book was rejected by 27 publishers because the book lacked a moral message. A friend undertook the publication and the book was a success. Up to World War II, he was a political activist urging America's involvement in the coming war. During the war he illustrated educational publications and films for the US Army. At the end of the war, the Lt. Col. moved to La Jolla, California.
He resumed his efforts with books for children. Up to then, he had published five books in this field. He did fifty-four more children's books under pseudonyms. Most of you will have read some of his books. The first one, rejected by 27 publishers, was " And to Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street ". Two of the later ones, perhaps the most widely read, were " The Cat in The Hat " and " How the Grinch Stole Christmas ". The "Cat" sold a million copies within three years. It lead to his association with Random House, where children's literature was promoted through the association of words and images.
Our man is, of course, Theodore Geisel, who used his middle name, Seuss, as the most famous of his pseudonyms. Along the way he won an Academy Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He wrote a musical, " The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T." . Several books were adapted to TV.
His wife Helen died in 1967 (she was the one who set him on his course of being an artist). He married again, but there were no children in either marriage. In 1991, the childless Dr. Suess died at La Jolla.
I am indebted to Robert and Barbara Selig who write for the "
German Life
" magazine for this story.
(11 Mar 04)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.