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MARION MARSH BROWN was born
Marion Elizabeth Marsh on July 22, 1908, at the farm home of
George L and Annie I Kennedy, her uncle and aunt, about five miles
northwest of Brownville, Nebraska. Her parents were Cassius H and Jenevie
H Marsh. Her father was an early-day newspaperman in Brownville. Her
mother eventually became Dean of Women at Peru State College, following
Cassius' death in 1924.
Somewhat of a child prodigy, Marion attended a one-room country
school within a quarter-mile of her home. She passed the eighth-grade
county-wide examinations when she was only eleven years old, graduated from
high school when she was fourteen, and began attending Peru State College in 1923
at the age of fifteen. She graduated from PSC in 1927, with an AB in English
and began teaching English and Latin in Steele City, Nebraska, in the fall
of 1927.
She continued her high school teaching career in such Nebraska
towns as Auburn, Curtis, and Franklin, until the fall of 1934, when she
returned to her alma mater as an assistant professor of English and advisor
to the college newspaper. During the time before she returned, she also
completed a masters in English from the University of Nebraska — Lincoln and
wrote her thesis on Willa Cather.
After marrying Gilbert S Brown, an Omaha attorney, on June 11,
1937, Marion resigned her position at PSC to join her husband in Omaha.
Following the birth of their son, Paul, in 1940, Marion did not return to
teaching full-time until 1954, when she joined the faculty of the
University of Omaha, where she taught until 1968.
She was just ten years old when she won a writing contest sponsored
by the Omaha Bee newspaper and had a story published for the first time.
She continued writing throughout her school years and the years of her
teaching, turning to producing stories for children's publications,
somewhat of a companion to her son's development, when Paul was young.
However, her plan to write for younger people also developed during
her first years of teaching. She realized that many books existed that
satisfied the needs of high school students but that few good books were
available for junior high students. Following a suggestion by her husband,
Gilbert, that Nathan Hale, the noted Revolutionary War hero, had been too
long neglected by historians, she wrote her first book for young people,
Young Nathan, which was published in 1949. Although many of her books are
for younger readers, some are for adults, and she often said she wrote for
"young people from the ages of nine to 90."
From 1949 on, she averaged about one book every two years until the
early 1990s. Other books in her first years were similar to Young Nathan
in that they chronicled the lives of famous American patriots. Later ones,
including biographies, fiction, and fictionalized biographies, reflected
Marion's Nebraska heritage and her interest in Nebraska's people, including
American Indians. She also managed to write more than 200 published short
stories and newspaper and magazine articles on a variety of subjects.
Because of her accomplishments, Marion Marsh Brown received many
awards, including the Sower Award from the Nebraska Humanities Council and
the Mari Sandoz Award from the Nebraska Library Association. In the late
1950s, she was also recognized by the Nebraska Council of Teachers of
English as one of Nebraska's ten most important writers, a fitting tribute
to one who twice received The Junior Literary Guild Award and spent her
entire writing and teaching career in Nebraska. — Dan Holtz, Peru State College
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