Caroline Dale Snedeker

Caroline Dale Snedeker (1871-1956), also known as Carolyn Dale Snedeker or Caroline Dale Owen, was an American writer, primarily of novels for young adults. Two of her books, Downright Dencey and The Forgotten Daughter, were Newbery Honor recipients.

She was born on March 23, 1871 in New Harmony, Indiana, to Charles A. Parke and Nina Dale Owen. Her great-grandfather was Robert Owen, one of Britain’s first social reformers and industrialists. She grew up near Mount Vernon, Indiana, in a family with three sisters. They later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Snedeker attended the College of Music. She and her sisters performed instrumental concerts to support the family after her father died. Caroline was the pianist in the group and later became a music instructor. She married Charles H. Snedeker in 1903, and they moved to Hempstead, New York. She later moved to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and died on January 22, 1956, at the age of 84. Her body was buried at Live Oak Cemetery in Harrison County, Mississippi.

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Caroline Dale Snedeker was born in 1871 in New Harmony, Indiana. Her grandfather, Robert Owen, was a successful Scottish industrialist and social reformer who came to the United States and founded New Harmony in an effort to found an "ideal society". As a child in New Harmony, she saw Italian murals representing Greek gods and goddesses which fired her imagination and curiosity about ancient times and places.

Then in 1903, she married Charles H. Snedeker, and, with his advice and encouragement, began to write. Her life-long interest in ancient times became a subject for careful study as Mrs. Snedeker read about history and traveled in Greece and Rome. The result was books such as The Forgotten Daughter and The White Isle.

When Caroline Dale Snedeker died in 1956, she left a legacy of books which continue to make the ancient world vivid and fascinating to readers.

From the dust jacket of the Theras and His Town, 1961 Edition