Person Page 1,142

Obituary -- (Findagrave.com):

Author, Illustrator. Tasha Tudor received notoriety as a 20th century American author and illustrator, publishing nearly two dozen children's books and illustrating another one hundred books. Her first book, “Pumpkin Moonshine,” was published in 1938, while the last being her 2003 “Corgiville Christmas.” The successful “Pumpkin Moonshine” was still in print more than fifty years after its original publication. Her most famous book was the 1971 “Corgiville Fair,” which featured a dog with human traits. Twice, she was the recipient of the Randolph Caldecott Medal, which is awarded annually in recognition of the preceding year's most distinguished American picture book for children: for “Mother Goose in 1945 and “1 is One” in 1957. For her contribution to children's Christian literature, she was the recipient in 1971 of the Regina Medal, which is awarded by the Catholic Literary Association. In 1941 for her book “A Tale for Easter,” she received the Children's Spring Book Festival Younger Honor, which was awarded by the “New York Herald Tribune.” She drew illustrations for Hans Christian Anderson's “Fairy Tales” published in 1945, for Robert Louis Steven's “ A Child's Garden in 1947 and most recently in 2002, Clement Clarke Moore's “The Night Before Christmas.” Her illustrations were of 19th century scenes with children, flowers and animal painted in soft watercolors and using delicate colored pencils, which resembles those of 19th century English illustrators, Beatrix Potter and Kate Greenway. Besides being a book illustrator, she created illustrations for Christmas cards, Advent calendars, Valentines, and posters to name a few items. She published the “Tasha Tubor Cookbook”, which contained 19th century recipes and “Tasha Tudor's Garden,” which offered gardening tips for antique flowers. She lived a very non-traditional life-style, especially for the first half of the 20th century. Born to a prominent New England family, her father was William Sterling Burgess, a yacht designer and aviation pioneer, and her mother, Rosamund Tudor, was a portrait painter. Her original birth name, Starling Burgess, was changed by her father to Natasha, with Tasha being the short version of the name. During World War I, her family relocated to Maryland, where her father was a naval architect. After her parents' divorce when she was nine years old, she used her mother's surname of Tudor instead of Burgess, thus her name became “Tasha Tudor.” At the age of ten, she was sent to live with a couple, “Aunt Gwen and Uncle Michael,” in Connecticut. After being exposed to the theater and other art sources as a child, she attended the Boston Museum Fine Arts School. She married for the first time to a colleague illustrator in 1938, became a mother of four children, divorced her husband, and changing the children's surname to Tudor. After the first marriage, the family moved back to New England, where they lived in a matter similar to the 19th century without any forms of technology. This meant no running water for a bathroom, no washing machine for dirty clothes, gathering eggs from their chickens, growing vegetables, milk from goats, making soap, cooking every meal over an open fire, and even making cloth on a spinning wheel for their clothing. Leaving this life style when her youngest child was five years old, she had a brief second marriage ending in divorce, legally changing her surname to Tudor, and eventually, returning to her 19th century way of life. With her children taking her with “a grain of salt,” she remarked often that she was a reincarnation of a sea captain’s wife from the early 19th century. Before her death, she had disinherited three of her four children, leaving the bulk of her $2,000,000 estate to one son and his son. The will was contested by the other children, and after two years, an agreement was settled out of court. Two of her daughters, Bethany and Efner, became illustrators. A large collection of her books, correspondence, and original art work are archived at the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She wrote her autobiography in 1951 and in 1992 “The Private World of Tasha Tudor.” With her children being indecisive, a judge ordered her ashes to be divided, with half being buried in her rose garden and the rest in her beloved pet corgi's grave.

Bio by: Linda Davis.