Smucker, Barbara Claassen (1915-2003)

Newton Kansan obituary: 2003 Aug 1 p. 2

Birth date: 1915 Sep 1

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 2003 Aug 11 p. 7

text of obituary:

Author of 14 children's books dies at age 87

By Mennonite Weekly Review staff

BLUFFTON, Ohio — Barbara Claassen Smucker, the author of 14 wel-regarded books for children, died July 29 in Bluffton. She was 87.

One of Smucker's books, Underground to Canada, was named one of the 50 best books of all time in Canada. A final book, Selina and the Shoo Fly Pie, was published in 1999.

Smucker had received numerous awards for her writing, including an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Bluffton College in 1989. Other awards include the Canada council Award and the Vicki Metcalf Award.

Smucker's first novel, Henry's Red Sea, was published in 1955.

But it was her account of a young fugitive slave, Runaway to Freedom, that earned Smucker some of her best reviews.

The book, based in part on stories Smucker heard as a child from a former slave, was noted for its scrupulous documentation and emphasis on little-known slave histories.

"Barbara Smucker has impeccable civil rights credentials," a New York Times reviewer wrote in 1978. "[This] well-wrought book should be read by all children."

Smucker's experiences living in Chicago during the volatile 1960s informed her novel, Wigwam in the City, an account of Native Americans trying to adjust to urban life.

Another novel,Days of Terror, recounted the Mennonite migration from Russia.

Smucker was born Sept. 1, 1915, at Newton, Kan., the daughter of Cornelius and Addie Claassen. She grew up in Newton and graduated from Kansas State University with an English degree.

She studied library science at Rosemary [sic Rosary] College in Illinois, where she worked as a librarian.

As a reporter for the Evening Kansan-Republican in Newton, she interviewed several celebrities who passed through town on the Santa Fe Railroad, including actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Pickford and Charles Laughton, and former president Herbert Hoover.

She met her husband, Donovan Smucker — later a distinguished Mennonite academic and pastor — when she interviewed him for the newspaper. They were married Jan. 21, 1939. Her husband, with whom she was honored by Bluffton College in 1989, died in 2001.

Survivors include two sons, Timothy Smucker of Atlanta and Thomas Smucker of New york City; a daughter, Rebecca Smucker-Blick of Douglas, Mich.; three brothers, Lander Claassen of Florida, Walter Claassen of Newton, Kan., and Morris Claassen of Great Bend, Kan.; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Funeral was Aug. 2 at First Mennonite Church in Bluffton.