Marie Hall Ets papers

Marie Hall Ets was born in North Greenfield, Wisconsin, December 16, 1895. The daughter of Walter and Mathilde (Carhart) Hall, she married Harold Norris Ets (deceased) and later Milton T. Rodig (deceased). Her formal education culminated in a Ph. D. degree from the University of Chicago, and also graduate study at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mrs. Ets’ career is best known as one of author-illustrator, primarily of numerous children’s stories (many of Mrs. Ets’ papers and children’s stories are housed in the Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota Libraries). Her writing span from approximately 1935 to the present, and have won for her the New York Herald Award (for Oley, the Sea Monster, 1947), the Hans Christian Andersen honor (for Play with Me, 1956), and the Caldecott Medal, 1960 (for Nine Days to Christmas). In 1918, Mrs. Ets journeyed to Chicago where she became a social worker at the Chicago Commons, a settlement house on the northwest side of the City. It was there that she met, and immediately befriended Rosa Cassettari, an Italian immigrant who had arrived in America in 1884. Throughout their relationship (1918 to 1943 when Rosa died) Rosa related to Mrs. Ets many of the stories she had heard as a child growing up in Italy. It was the story of Rosa Cassettari’s life, of the fears and beliefs of the people in her village, that interested Marie Hall Ets. The result was Rosa, the Life of an Italian Immigrant, published in 1970 by the University of Minnesota Press.