Elizabeth George Speare
Elizabeth George Speare was an American author born on November 21, 1908, in Melrose, Massachusetts. She pursued her education at Smith College and later graduated from Boston University, where she also earned her master's degree. After a brief career as a high-school English teacher, Speare devoted herself to family life following her marriage to Alden Speare in 1936, but returned to writing when her children became more independent. Speare gained her initial success with nonfiction articles but ultimately found her niche in historical fiction. Her first novel, "Calico Captive," emerged from research into colonial history and was well received, paving the way for her acclaimed work, "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," which won the Newbery Medal. Speare won a second Newbery Medal for "The Bronze Bow," a novel that explored themes of faith and violence through a historical lens. Known for her honest portrayal of difficult historical truths, Speare emphasized resilience and hope in her characters. She passed away on November 15, 1994, in Tucson, Arizona.
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Subject Terms
Elizabeth George Speare
Author
- Born: November 21, 1908
- Birthplace: Melrose, Massachusetts
- Died: November 15, 1994
- Place of death: Tucson, Arizona
Biography
Elizabeth George was born on November 21, 1908, in Melrose, Massachusetts. Her father, Harry Allan George, was an engineer, and her mother was named Demetria George, née Simmons. Although Elizabeth had only one brother, she had a large extended family of uncles, aunts, and cousins who lived in easy visiting distance. Among them was a cousin who encouraged her interest in writing, spending at least some of every family gathering reading and listening to stories.
George attended Smith College for one year, in 1927-1928, before graduating from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in 1930. She subsequently completed her master’s degree at Boston University in 1932. She worked as a high-school English teacher for four years, until she married. On September 26, 1936, she married Alden Speare, an industrial chemist, with whom she had two children, Alden, Jr., and Mary Elizabeth.
At that time it was simply expected that a married woman would not work outside the home, but would rather devote her energies to family and homemaking or to voluntary community projects once her children no longer demanded her full attention. Only when her children were in junior high school and functioning relatively independently did Speare finally have time to write once again. By that point she was determined to find a wider audience for her work, rather than letting it languish unread in a binder somewhere.
Speare’s first success came with nonfiction for the ladies’ magazines, but in time she discovered her real interest lay in historical fiction. She was working on a nonfiction article about the celebrated Smith sisters, heiresses in colonial Glastonbury, Connecticut, who refused to pay taxes on their land and cows and who ultimately won the right to vote based upon their meeting the property qualifications. The research led to the diary of Susanna Johnson, who had been captured by Indians and later handed off to French traders like merchandise.
Speare was so enthralled by the story that she began to imagine scenes from the adventures of Johnson’s sister Miriam. It ultimately became her first novel, Calico Captive. Its success was followed by The Witch of Blackbird Pond, for which she won the Newbery Medal by a unanimous vote. One of her more risky projects was The Bronze Bow, in which she sought to bring Jesus to life through the eyes of a young zealot who comes to see that violence against the Roman Empire is not the answer. It won her a second Newbery Medal, making her one of very few people so honored.
Although many of her historical novels dealt with grim events, Speare refused to sugar-coat the ugly realities of past injustice. She always insisted that the protagonist must never be crushed by adverse events but must always convey a sense that life goes on and there is hope. Speare died on November 15, 1994, of an aortic aneurism while in Tuscon, Arizona.