BornGladys Leonae Bagg
(1899-04-12)April 12, 1899
Colorado Springs, Colorado
DiedMarch 11, 1980(1980-03-11) (aged 80)
Hyannis, Massachusetts
Resting placeSouthbury, Massachusetts
OccupationAuthor, Professor
Alma materWellesley College BA, Lawrence College MA, Columbia graduate studies
Notable works“Butternut Wisdom” Stillmeadow books
SpouseFrancis (Frank) Albion Taber Jr., 1899-1946 (divorced)
ChildrenConstance
RelativesCotton Mather
Website
www.gladystaber.org


Gladys Bagg Taber (1899–1980) was the American professor and author of over 50 books, 200 short stories, and many magazine articles. Tabor was a columnist for Ladies' Home Journal and Family Circle. She also wrote memoirs, fiction and plays. She is best remembered for her many books about her 1690 Connecticut farmhouse, Stillmeadow, her Still Cove Cape Cod books, and "Butternut Wisdom", a column the appeared for 8 years in Family Circle. Her work appeared in major magazines of the day like Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping.

Early life edit

Gladys Leonae Bagg was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado on April 12, 1899 to Rufus Mather Bagg and Grace Sybil (Raybold) Bagg. Her middle name came from an uncle Leonidas Hatch, an officer in the Civil War.[1] Born the middle child, her older sister died at six months, her younger brother at fifteen months.[2] Tabor's father was a mining engineer whose career moved the family around the United States and once into Mexico. Tabor spent summers on her grandfather's farm near West Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1903[3] her father began teaching geology and mineralogy at Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin.[4]


Later, she received her bachelor's degree from Wellesley, 1920, and her M.A. from Lawrence College, 1921.

She married Frank Taber and they had a daughter Constance which interrupted her academic career, then having commuted to New York part of the time to teach creative writing at Columbia University, 1921-26.

Stillmeadow years edit

a 1690 farmhouse off of Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury starting in 1933, summers only, and 1935 full time.[5]

The house was jointly owned by the Tabers and their friends Eleanor and Max Mayer.

Her column "Diary of Domesticity" began in the Ladies' Home Journal in November 1937; "Butternut Wisdom" ran in the Family Circle from 1959 to 1967.

Gladys Taber lived in "Stillmeadow," a 1690 farmhouse off Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury starting in 1933 (summers only) and 1935 (full time).

Gladys Bagg Taber died on March 11, 1980.

Bibliography edit

  • 1925/8 Lady of the Moon
  • 1929 Lyonnesse
  • 1934 Late Climbs the Sun
  • 1935 Tomorrow May Be Fair
  • 1937 The Evergreen Tree
  • 1938 Long Tails and Short
  • 1938 A Star to Steer By
  • 1938 This Is For Always
  • 1940 Harvest at Stillmeadow
  • 1944 The Heart Has April Too
  • 1944 Give Us This Day
  • 1944 Nurse in Blue
  • 1945/9 Especially Spaniels
  • 1945 Give Me the Stars
  • 1946 The Family on Maple Street
  • 1947/8 Flower Arranging for the American Home
  • 1947/51 Stillmeadow Kitchen
  • 1948 The Book of Stillmeadow
  • 1948 Daisy and Dobbin, Two Little Seahorses
  • 1949 Especially Father
  • 1949 The First Book of Dogs
  • 1950 The First Book of Cats
  • 1950 Stillmeadow Seasons
  • 1952 When Dogs Meet People
  • 1953 Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge
  • 1955 Stillmeadow Daybook
  • 1957 Mrs. Daffodil
  • 1958 What Cooks at Stillmeadow
  • 1959 Spring Harvest
  • 1959 Stillmeadow Sampler
  • 1962 The Stillmeadow Road
  • 1963 Another Path
  • 1965 Stillmeadow Cook Book
  • 1966 One Dozen and One
  • 1967 Stillmeadow Calendar
  • 1968 Especially Dogs
  • 1969 A Book to Begin on Flower Arranging
  • 1969 Stillmeadow Album
  • 1970 Amber, A Very Personal Cat
  • 1970 Reveries at Stillmeadow
  • 1971 My Own Cape Cod
  • 1972 My Own Cook Book
  • 1974 Country Chronicle
  • 1976 Harvest of Yesterdays
  • 1976 The Best of Stillmeadow
  • 1977 Letters of Inspiration
  • 1978 Conversations With Amber
  • 1981 Still Cove Journal

Notes edit

References edit

  1. ^ Current Biography. H.W. Wilson. 1982. p. 574.
  2. ^ Kelley, James Herbert (1013). The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois. University of Illinois. p. 664.
  3. ^ The American Blue Book of Biography: Men of 1912-. American Publishers. 1914. p. 48.
  4. ^ "Index of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Individuals". Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center. Boston University. Retrieved July 23, 2012.
  5. ^ "Circle of Writers, Gladys Taber". The Mystical Gardens.