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=                      Gertrude_Chandler_Warner                      =
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                            Introduction
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Gertrude Chandler Warner (April 16, 1890 - August 30, 1979) was an
American author, mainly of children's stories. She was most famous for
writing the original book of 'The Boxcar Children' and for the next 18
books in the series.


                             Biography
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Warner was born on April 16, 1890, in Connecticut, to Edgar Morris
Warner and Jane Elizabeth Carpenter Warner. Her family included an
older sister, Frances, and a younger brother, John. Her middle name of
Chandler came from her mother's ancestors, the Chandlers, who had
settled in nearby Woodstock, CT in 1686. Her father Edgar Warner had
graduated from Harvard Law School in 1872 and practiced law in Putnam,
CT. The Warners' house on Main Street was located across from the
railroad station.

When she was five, Warner dreamed of being an author. Later, she
accomplished that dream and started writing 'The Boxcar Children'.
Albert Whitman & Company Retrieved and began writing in ten-cent
blank books as soon as she was able to hold a pencil. Her first book
was an imitation of Florence Kate Upton's 'Golliwog' stories and was
titled 'Golliwog at the Zoo'; It "consisted of verses illustrated with
watercolors of the two Dutch clocks and the Goliwag. Warner presented
this book to her grandfather, and every Christmas afterwards, she
would give him a hand-made book as a present.

While growing up, Warner loved to read, and her favorite book was
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. Being in a musical family, she was
predisposed to play an instrument; in her case, she chose the cello,
and her father bought her a cello kit at a young age. However, because
of her frequent illnesses, Warner never finished high school. After
leaving, she studied with a tutor and finished her secondary
education. In 1918, while she was teaching Sunday School, Warner was
called to teach first grade, mainly because male teachers were being
called to serve in World War I. Warner continued teaching as a grade
school teacher in Putnam from 1918 to 1950. Also during this time, she
returned to school for education courses at Yale University's summer
school.

Warner was a lover of nature. While growing up, she had butterfly and
moth collections, pressed wildflowers, learned of all the birds in her
backyard and other places, and kept a garden to see what butterflies
were doing. She used these interests in teaching her grade school
students, and also used nature themes in her books. For instance, in
the second book of 'The Boxcar Children Surprise Island,' the Alden
children make a nature museum from the flowers, shells and seaweed
they have collected and the shapes of birds they have observed. One of
her students recalled the wildflower and stone-gathering contests that
Warner sponsored when she was a teacher.

As well as her books in 'The Boxcar Children' series, Warner wrote
many other books for children, including 'The World in a Barn' (1927),
'Windows into Alaska' (1928), 'The World on a Farm' (1931) and 'Peter
Piper, Missionary Parakeet' (1967). With her sister, Frances Lester
Warner, she cowrote "Life's Minor Collisions," a series of essays
about humorous conflicts of temperament among friends and families.
The sisters took the essays in turn, Frances writing the odd-numbered
pieces and Gertrude the even.

Warner never married. She lived in her parents' home for almost 40
years, then moved to her grandmother's house. In 1962, she moved to a
brown-shingled house, Jill C. Wheeler, 'Gertrude Chandler Warner',
Abdo Publishing Co, and lived there with her companion, a retired
nurse. In her later life, before she died at age 89, Warner became a
volunteer for the American Red Cross, a Cancer Society and other
charitable organizations to help kids and adults in need from
suffering. She is buried in Grove Street Cemetery, in Putnam.


                   ''The Boxcar Children'' series
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Warner once said that she did much of her writing while convalescing
from illnesses or accidents, and that she conceived the idea of The
Boxcar Children while sick at home. Of this, she said -

"I had to stay at home from school because of an attack of
bronchitis. Having written a series of eight books to order for a
religious organization, I decided to write a book just to suit myself.
What would I like to do? Well, I would like to live in a freight car,
or a caboose. I would hang my wash out on the little back piazza and
cook my stew on the little rusty stove found in the caboose."

This original version of 'The Boxcar Children' was published by Rand
McNally and Company in 1924. It included 4 color illustrations by
Dorothy Lake Gregory. In 1942, Warner rewrote the book with a
prescribed vocabulary of six hundred words and a text of about 15,000
words, so that it could be used as a children's school reader. This
edition featured numerous black-and-white silhouette illustrations by
L. Kate Deal. Warner continued writing other things, but did not
continue with 'The Boxcar Children' series until her retirement from
teaching. The second book in the series, 'Surprise Island', was
published in 1949.

Warner once acknowledged that 'The Boxcar Children' was criticized for
depicting children with little parental supervision; her critics
thought that this would encourage child rebellion. Her response was,
however, that the children liked it for that very reason. In her
books, Warner "liked to stress the Aldens' independence and
resourcefulness and their solid New England devotion to using up and
making do."

Today, Albert Whitman & Company publishes the extremely popular
series of Warner's original 19 stories. Other authors have contributed
to the series, adding approximately 150 books to 'The Boxcar Children'
series.

In 2020, Gertrude Chandler Warner's 'The Box-Car Children', the first
book in the series went into the public domain.


                       Boxcar Children Museum
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On July 3, 2004, the Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children Museum
opened in Putnam, Connecticut. It is located across the street from
Warner's childhood home and is housed in an authentic 1920s New Haven
R.R. boxcar. The museum is dedicated to Warner's life and work, and
includes original signed books, photos and artifacts from her life and
career as a teacher in Putman. Included is the desk at which a
9-year-old Warner wrote her first story titled 'Golliwog at the Zoo'.
There is also a re-creation of the living space created by the Aldens
- the Boxcar Children themselves.


                              See also
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* List of Boxcar Children novels


Online texts
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*
*
*
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42796 Full-Text of the original
1924 version of 'The Box-Car Children' on Gutenberg.org.]
* [https://archive.org/details/Theboxcarchildren1924 PDF version of
the original 1924 version of 'The Box-Car Children' on Archive.org.]
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37899 'Life's Minor Collisions'
written with Frances Warner.]


About Warner
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* [http://boxcarchildrenmuseum.com Boxcar Children Museum]
*
*
*
[http://tinytownbooksandtoys.com/1924-vintage-boxcar-children-book.php
'The Box-Car Children' (1924 first edition)]  presentation by a rare
books dealer
*


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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Chandler_Warner