| Main entry | van Stockum, Hilda |
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| Birth place | Rotterdam, Holland, Netherlands |
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| Birth date | 9 February 1908 |
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| Death place | Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England |
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| Death date | 1 November 2006 |
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| Identifier | 0395 |
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| Birth name | Hilda Gerarda van Stockum |
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| Married name | Marlin |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Catholic |
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| Paid work | teacher (art); lecturer, Child Education Foundation; illustrator |
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| Biography | Born in Rotterdam, Holland, Hilda Gerarda van Stockum (1908-2006) travelled extensively with her family, visiting the East Indies, Paris, Switzerland, and Ireland by the time she was seventeen. After attending the Dublin School of Art, as well as the Amsterdam Academy of Art, she became an art teacher in Ireland and an illustrator for Browne and Nolan, publishers in Dublin in the late 1920s. In Ireland she met Ervin Marlin (1909-1994), a roommate and friend of her brother; after marrying in 1932, the two moved to the United States. Hilda received a diploma in Montessori Kindergarten teaching in 1933 and also studied at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. With the 1934 publication of her self-illustrated children's book, A DAY ON SKATES: THE STORY OF A DUTCH PICNIC (1934), and its win of the 1935 Newbery Honor Award, she launched a successful seventy-year career in the visual and literary arts. (She illustrated her last book in 2001.) Becoming an American citizen in 1936 and converting to Catholicism in 1939, Hilda lived with her family and mother in Quebec from 1946 to 1962. CANADIAN SUMMER (1948), which was optioned for a film in 1949 with Renaissance Films in Montreal, and FRIENDLY GABLES (1960) feature autobiographical stories of this era in the author's life. In addition to raising six children, each of whom are represented in characters from THE MITCHELLS (1945), she continued to illustrate and translate other authors' works, including editions of LITTLE WOMEN and LITTLE MEN. Passionate about painting, she also taught art and showed her own work at galleries in Dublin, Geneva, Ottawa, and Washington. She was president of the Children's Book Guild in Washington, D.C. from 1972-1974, after which she and Ervin moved to England. In all, she authored two dozen books of juvenile fiction, one of poetry, and nine translations. Surviving her husband by twelve years, Hilda died after a stroke while at her home in Berkhamsted, England in 2006. |
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| Travel | Indonesia, and England, 1934; Ireland, 1935; England, 1956 |
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| Other notes | Children's notes: Olga Marlin wrote TO AFRICA WITH A DREAM and founded over forty girls' schools in Africa, including the first multi-racial girls' school in East Africa. Brigid Marlin wrote FROM EAST TO WEST and is a fantasy and portrait artist. Randal Marlin wrote PROPAGANDA: THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION and taught philosophy at Carleton before becoming an Adjunct Research Professor. Sheila O'Neill is an artist and headmistress of several Montessori schools in the UK. John Tepper Marlin is Principal of New York's CityEconomist, Adjunct Professor at NYU's Stern School of Business, and writes a blog for Huffington Post. Elisabeth Paice is Acting Director of Medical and Dental Education at NHS London. Family websites with contact information can be found at www.hildavanstockum.com and www.boissevain.us. |
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| Honours and awards | Award for A DAY ON SKATES, Newbery Honor Award (1935) |
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| Residences | Rotterdam, Holland (1908-); Java, Indonesia (1908-c1910); Amsterdam region (1910-1930); Dublin, Ireland (c1929-1933); New York City, New York (1933-1935); Washington, D.C. (1935-1946); St. Adele, Quebec (1946); Lachine, Quebec (1946-48); Montreal, Quebec (1948-1951); Dublin area, Ireland (Terenure, Blackrock, and Dalkey, 1951-1954); Paris, France (1954-55); Westmount, Montreal (1955-1962); Geneva, Switzerland (1962-64); Washington, D.C. area (Washington and Chevy Chase, MD, 1964-1973); Berkhamsted, England (1973-2006) |
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| Geographic regions | Quebec; USA |
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| Primary genres | fiction (juvenile); poetry; translation |
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| Books | A DAY ON SKATES (1934); THE COTTAGE AT BANTRY BAY (1938); FRANCIE ON THE RUN (1939); KERSTI AND ST. NICHOLAS (1940); PEGEEN (1941); ANDRIES (1942); THE BEGGAR'S PENNY (1943); GERRIT AND THE ORGAN (1943); THE MITCHELLS (1945); THE ANGELS' ALPHABET (1948); CANADIAN SUMMER (1948); PATSY AND THE PUP (1950); THE ANGELS' ALPHABET (1950); KING OBERON'S FOREST (1957); FRIENDLY GABLES (1960); LITTLE OLD BEAR (1962); THE WINGED WATCHMAN (1962); JEREMY BEAR (1963); BENNIE AND THE NEW BABY (1964); NEW BABY IS LOST (1964); MOGO'S FLUTE (1966); PENENGRO (1972); RUFUS ROUND AND ROUND (1973); THE BORROWED HOUSE (1975) |
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| Periodicals | CANADIAN BANKER; HORN BOOK; PARENTS' MAGAZINE |
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| Organizations | Children's Book Guild |
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| Other arts | art (illustration) |
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| Father's name | Abraham Johannes ("Bram") van Stockum |
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| Life dates of father | 3 July 1864, Lisse, Holland, Netherlands - 29 December 1935, The Hague, Holland, Netherlands; m. 1906 |
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| Father's note | Captain and, briefly, Vice-Admiral in the Dutch Navy; inventor (unsuccessfully marketed rice cooker and gearless car in America) |
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| Mother's name | Olga Emily Boissevain |
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| Life dates of mother | 27 October 1875, Amsterdam, Netherlands - 1 June 1949, Montreal, Quebec; m. 1906 |
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| Mother's note | daughter of Dutch journalist and editor, Charles Bossevain (1842-1927); very involved in raising the Marlin children; story-teller (recorded reading fairy tales at Library of Congress); acquainted with Maria Montessori |
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| Spouse 1 | Ervin Ross ("Spike") Marlin |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | 31 July 1909, New York City, New York - 16 December 1994, Berkhamsted, Hertsfordshire, England |
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| Spouse 1 note | born "Irving Hirsch"; civil servant in FDR New Deal administration; liaison officer in Social Security Administration (1936-39); director of personnel, Federal Security Agency (1939-42); senior representative in Dublin for Office of Strategic Services; worked for London International Assembly; White House representative at UN founding; official of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (later Director of Technical Assistance for ICAO); Senior Director of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva (1962-64); Associate Director for International Affairs of the National Retired Teachers Association and the American Association of Retired Persons (1971); co-founded the International Federation on Ageing (1973) |
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| Marriage 1 date | 27 June 1932 |
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| Marriage 1 place | St. Stephen's Church, Dublin, Ireland |
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| Children number | 6 |
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| Children's names and dates | Olga Emily (12 November 1934 - );
Brigid Nella (16 January 1936 - ), m. to Benjamin Oakley;
Randal Robert (22 January 1938 - ), m. to Elaine O'Brien;
Sheila Ruth (25 October 1939 - ), m. to Derrick Shane O'Neill;
John Anthony (1 March 1942 - ), m. to Alice Rose Tepper;
Elisabeth Willemein (23 April 1944 - ), m. to Paice |
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| Biographical references | SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR, vol. 5; TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHILDREN'S WRITERS; 1940 United States Federal Census; Ireland, Civil Registration Marriages Index, 1845-1958; New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957; U.S., Consular Reports of Marriages, 1910-1949; UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960; special thanks to John Tepper Marlin, New York City, and Randal Marlin, Ottawa, for family contributions |
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| Bibliographic references | National Union Catalogue |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | Hilda van Stockum Papers (1939-1979, 2.7 cubic feet, 7 boxes), de Grummond Collection, University of Southern Mississippi Library; manuscripts, May Massee Collection, Emporia State University, Kansas; manuscripts, Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota. |
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| Image credits | Image courtesy of the author's sons, John Tepper Marlin and Randal Marlin. |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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