Elizabeth Janet Gray

created by junkpile

(person) by junkpile (2.9 y) (print) ? (I like it!) 2 C!s Tue Oct 24 2000 at 14:02:42

Elizabeth Janet Gray was born Elizabeth Gray Vining, on October 6, 1902, in Philadelphia. Her writing career began at age 17, when she sold a story to Young Churchman magazine. She studied at Bryn Mawr and Drexel University. After graduation, to supporther writing, she taught, and became a librarian.

In 1926 she joined the library staff of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and in 1929 she married Morgan Fisher Vining, a university administrator. It was a happy marriage, and Elizabeth was devastated when it ended in 1933 with Morgan's death in a car accident, in which she was also severely injured. She returned to Pennsylvania to heal, and it was during this difficult time that she was drawn to Quakerism, with which she was already familiar. "My search for meaning had taken me that winter into many lanes and some blind alleys; in the end I returned to the Quaker meeting of my childhood and of my New Jersey ancestors. It was the silence that drew me, that deep healing silence of the meeting at its best, when the search of each is intensified by the search of all."

After writing eleven books, all under the name Elizabeth Janet Gray, she won the Newbery in 1943.

Through her involvement with the Quaker church, Vining was chosen to tutor Crown Prince Akihito of Japan from 1946 to 1950. When Vining first encountered the Emperor during a first-year class, she addressed him as "Jimmy."

"No," he replied, "I am the prince."

Vining explained that though he was the prince, all students in the class had been given English names to show her resolve that no exceptions would be made. He dealt with it pretty well.

Before she left Japan, the Japanese government presented Vining with a medal, the Order of the Sacred Crown, an award given only to women with eight degrees of merit. It was explained that the first and second degrees were reserved for princesses. Would Mrs Vining be content with the third? "Mottai nai," ("It's too good") she said in her best Japanese.

She was the only foreign guest to attend the Emperor's wedding ceremony in 1959. He sent her a concerned letter after hearing that she had been involved in another car accident in 1990. He regularly sent her flowers on her birthday, delivered to her apartment in a limousine by the Japanese embassy.

Her experiences in Japan led her to write two books, Windows for the Crown Prince and Return to Japan. Over her long career, Vining wrote over sixty books for children and adults, including biographies, contemporary fiction, and historical novels.

Vining died on November 27, 1999.

Books:

Adam of the Road (1943 Newbery Award)

thanks to:
http://www2.gol.com/users/quakers/vining_obituary.htm
http://avatar.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/findaids/vining.htm
www.amazon.com

printable version
chaos

DPT	Pecos Bill	Elizabeth	Jimmy
Quaker	Bryn Mawr College	1959	1990
1946	Drexel University	1943	Newbery award
eleven	1933	November 27, 1999	Chapel Hill, North Carolina
1926	1902	University of North Carolina	17
Philadelphia	The King and I

Y'know, if you log in, you can write something here, or contact authors directly on the site. Create a New User if you don't already have an account.

Login
Password

remember me
password reminder
register

Everything2 Help

Nodes your grandma would have liked:
Mattbox: Mac OS X Chatterbox Client
social Darwinism
Perl
car chase
The Welsh Triads
Thoughts on The Joy Luck Club
The Years of Rice and Salt
Trinket
King Arthur
It is my nature to covet
What to read to a child
Noam Chomsky
The mama and the dancing girl, unfurling

trixingee
Dungeon Mastering for the first time	(idea)
Netrat0
It's Called Subtext, Honey	(person)
eyeofthebeholder
The Dragon	(idea)
Heitah
consist, comprise, constitute, or compose	(idea)
Meezzio
Gotlandssnus	(thing)
argv
Astral Plane	(idea)
Madara
One Winged Angel	(fiction)
Tom Rook
Talk is cheap	(poetry)
shaogo
Adelle Davis	(person)
Aerobe
race car g sfjsgsd	(poetry)
Binah
Dream Log: July 5, 2008	(dream)
StrawberryFrog
Forgotten things in space	(idea)
antigravpussy
velvet revolution fairy tale	(idea)
Heitah
Nerve agent VX	(thing)
Pavlovna
shite	(idea)

Everything 2 is brought to you by the letter C and The Everything Development Company