Sterling North
November 4, 1906 - December 22, 1974
Thomas Sterling North was an American author of books for children and adults, including 1963's bestselling Rascal. North, who professionally went by "Sterling North", was born on the second floor of a farmhouse on the shores of Lake Koshkonong, a few miles from Edgerton, Wisconsin, in 1906, and... died in Morristown, New Jersey in 1974. Surviving a near-paralyzing struggle with polio in his teens, he grew to young adulthood in the quiet southern Wisconsin village of Edgerton, which North transformed into the "Brailsford Junction" setting of several of his books. Sterling North's maternal grandparents, James Hervey Nelson and Sarah Orelup Nelson, were Wisconsin pioneers. Born in Putnam County, New York, James moved first to near Rochester, New York, then to Menomonee, in Waukesha County, Wisconsin , then pioneered a farm near present day South Wayne, in southwestern Wisconsin. His daughter, Sarah Elizabeth "Elizabeth" Nelson, was Sterling North's mother; she died when Sterling was seven years old. She married David Willard North, also the product of a pioneering local family, whose brother ran the family farm.
more