Introduction

Biography

Grace first at­tempt­ed writ­ing po­et­ry at the age of 8, but in a rare in­stance of non-sup­port by her oth­er­wise lov­ing fa­mi­ly, she found her ef­forts laughed at as an in­fan­tile effort.

She stated, I ne­ver tried to write af­ter that un­til love and ro­mance and a home came to me. That quick­ened and awak­ened the de­sire to write po­et­ry again.

Grace was edu­cat­ed at the Ger­man-English col­lege in Wil­ton, Io­wa. Af­ter earn­ing her Ba­chelor of Arts in 1901, she mar­ried Nor­man H. Crow­ell (al­so a writer) in Se­ptem­ber 1901.

She and Nor­man moved to Farm­ing­ton, Min­ne­so­ta, where he worked as a bank tell­er and she as a house­wife and mo­ther.

In 1906, she fell grave­ly ill, and de­spite the best me­di­cal care avail­able at the time, she failed to im­prove.

While re­signed to spend­ing life as an in­va­lid, she had no de­sire to be a bur­den to her fa­mi­ly, and de­ter­mined to be­come a writ­er. Her first po­em, The Marsh­land, was writ­ten and pub­lished while she was re­cov­er­ing from her ill­ness.

It was pri­mar­ily her long con­fine­ment and suf­fer­ing in va­ri­ous hos­pi­tals that led her to write vers­es of hope, pa­tience, and in­spi­ra­tion. She stat­ed, The thought kept com­ing to me, I would like to write po­et­ry that will help oth­ers who are suf­fer­ing as I am.

She con­tin­ued to write, and ma­ny of her works were sub­se­quent­ly pub­lished in po­pu­lar pe­ri­od­ic­als.

Her health im­proved af­ter a move to Sioux Ci­ty, Io­wa. The fa­mi­ly sub­se­quent­ly moved to Wi­chi­ta Falls, Tex­as, in 1917, and two years lat­er to Dal­las, Tex­as, where she spent the rest of her life.

She ev­en­tu­al­ly com­plet­ed ov­er 3,500 po­ems and 21 books, and re­ceived an hon­or­ary Litt.D. de­gree from Bay­lor Uni­ver­si­ty. In 1935, she was named Po­et Lau­re­ate of the State of Tex­as.

The mo­ther of three sons, she was named Am­er­ican Mo­ther of the Year in 1938.