Ellis Credle

Ellis Credle (1902–1998) was an American writer.

She wrote a number of books for children and young adults, some of which she also illustrated.

After graduating in 1922 she went to the Blue Ridge Mountains to teach history and French at the Forest City High School.

She taught for two years.

Unfortunately, she was very unhappy in this work, finding the country "majestic" but the work "uncongenial."

Within a short span of time, young Credle pursued a few different directions.

In 1924 she came into a small inheritance, and decided to invest in a course in interior decoration.

By 1925 she was studying at the New York School of Interior Decoration; she soon decided that although this was an art, it was too much a business for her.

She began taking courses in commercial art at the Art Students League and also attended the Beaux Arts Architectural Institute, but her funds ran low.

Then for eight years, all the while hoping to return to art, Credle held a variety of jobs: salesgirl, librarian, guitarist, soap distributor, "imported" Japanese lampshade painter, and usher at Carnegie Hall.

She also worked as a governess to the children of the wealthy.

It is said that she conceived the idea of becoming a children's book author while telling stories to her young charges.

Credle said, "If I had to choose the circumstance that was most important in turning me toward a career of writing and illustrating for children, I should say it was the fact that I saw myself running out of money during the year that I had chosen to study art in New York. To piece out of my foundering financial situation I got a job as part-time governess for two children. One of my duties was to read to them from their library of a hundred or more books for children. This gave me a background in the subject, and I soon discovered that the children preferred the stories I made up myself. These were based on things that had happened to me on my grandfather's tobacco plantation and also adventures on the Carolina outer islands. I began to write these tales down with the idea of finding a publisher."

Another source says that Credle, while looking for work as an illustrator, was advised by an editor to consider writing and illustrating children's literature.

Credle related that she then went to the New York Public Library "and read every children’s book they had."

Deciding that few of these books were really stories, she determined to create a new kind of book for children using the folk tales and legends of North Carolina.

She is said to have "concocted fairy tales and garnered rejection slips" before turning her focus to more realistic stories based in her own background.

Credle said, "My first five tries at fiction were all rejected."

While looking for a publisher for her stories, Credle took a job drawing reptiles for the American Museum of Natural History.

Fortunately, this employment afforded Credle a full day off each week to pursue her dream of becoming a children's book author.

A friend gave her the use of his studio during the day, and Credle found the elegant space more conducive to creative endeavor than her cramped apartment.

A promising idea for a story set in the Blue Ridge Mountains began to take shape, and Credle set to work "writing and rewriting, doing and redoing the pictures."

She submitted early versions to publishers, but they were rejected.

One helpful editor advised her that since she had made the setting realistic she should make the story less fantastic.

Another advised her to limit her pallette to fewer colors, since publishers would be hesitant to invest the money required to print full-color illustrations.

She adopted these suggestions.

Credle heard a rumor that her job drawing reptiles would soon be coming to an end, and decided to head home to North Carolina for a time.

She then had the idea to travel to Chicago, and she found a room near where his brother and his wife were living.

Credle (which is pronounced "cradle") is best known as the creator of the acclaimed children's book Down Down the Mountain (1934) and other stories set in the South.

While the most successful of her work has been called inspirational, some other stories were controversial for her depiction of African Americans.

Credle was raised in North Carolina, but broke into writing after years of struggle in New York City.

She spent the last half of her long life residing in Mexico, where some of her later stories are set.

Over the course of her career she had the opportunity to collaborate with her husband, who was a professional photographer, and with her son, who in time became a well-known archeologist.

Born and raised in what she called "the somber low country of North Carolina" in Hyde County on Pamlico Sound, Ellis Credle was the daughter of Zach and Bessie (Cooper) Credle.

Her father was a soy bean planter.

She said that although her home was far from any railroad and isolated by swamps and forests, she perceived herself at the time as being "right in the middle of things."

Her childhood also included time spent on her grandfather's tobacco plantation; on North Carolina's coastal islands; and in the Appalachian Highlands.

As an author, she later drew upon her early experiences in these regions when designing her characters and settings.

At the age of sixteen, she was admitted to Louisburg College, the same school her grandmother had attended during the Civil War.

There she became editor-in-chief of the school literary magazine, "The Collegian."