November 21: Birthday of Elizabeth George Speare (1908)
Prayer Idea
Pray for people who are encouraging others to celebrate love, honor, and duty.
History Note
Elizabeth George was born on November 21, 1908, in Melrose, Massachusetts. She attended Smith College and Boston University and taught high school English.
Elizabeth married Alden Speare in 1936, and they settled in Connecticut. In the 1950s, when her children were older, Elizabeth Speare began a career in writing.
Speare published articles in several national magazines. Her first book, Calico Captive (1957), told a story about a young woman taken captive by the Abenaki people. True events from the French and Indian War inspired the story.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond (1958), Speare’s second novel, received the Newbery Medal. She received a second Newbery Medal for The Bronze Bow (1961), set during the time of Christ.
Life in Colonial America (1963) was Speare’s nonfiction book that explored daily life from the time of the settlers at Jamestown to the American Revolution. Speare published The Prospering, a historical novel for adults, in 1967.
The Sign of the Beaver (1983) was Speare’s final book. In honor of her contributions to children’s literature, Speare received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association in 1989.
In her 1962 Newbery Medal acceptance speech for The Bronze Bow, Speare discussed her motivations for writing:
I believe that all of us who are concerned with children are committed to the salvaging of love and honor and duty. Not only our own faith, but the children themselves compel us. Young people do not want to accept meaninglessness. They look to the adult world for evidence that we have found our values to be enduring. Yet perhaps never before have they looked so clearly, so despairingly, at the evidence we have to offer. They demand an honest answer. Those of us who have found love and honor and duty to be a sure foundation must somehow find words which have the ring of truth.
Speare died in 1994.
This postcard shows the train depot in Melrose, Massachusetts, around the time of Speare’s birth. She described her hometown as “an ideal place in which to have grown up, close to fields and woods where we hiked and picnicked, and near to Boston where we frequently had family treats of theaters and concerts.”
Learn More
Watch this short biography of Elizabeth George Speare.
Find more resources at Homeschool History.
