Harriet Doerr

{{short description|American author}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Harriet Doerr | image = Harriet Doerr.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Harriet Green Huntington | birth_date = {{birth date|1910|04|08}} | birth_place = Pasadena, California | death_date = {{death date and age|2002|11|24|1910|4|8}} | death_place = Pasadena, California | nationality = | alma_mater = Smith College<br>Scripps College<br/>Stanford University | other_names = | spouse = Albert Doerr, Jr. (m. 1930) | children = Michael, Martha | known_for = | notable_works = ''Stones for Ibarra'' | occupation = Author }}

'''Harriet Huntington Doerr''' (April 8, 1910 – November 24, 2002) was an American author whose debut novel was published at the age of 74.

==Early life== A granddaughter of California railroad magnate and noted collector of art and rare books, Henry Edwards Huntington, Harriet Green Huntington grew up in a Pasadena, California, family that encouraged intellectual endeavors. She attended high school at Westridge School, in Pasadena. She then enrolled in Smith College in 1927, but transferred to Stanford University the following year where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://heritage.kappaalphatheta.org/page/notablethetas|title=Notable Thetas - Heritage - Kappa Alpha Theta|website=heritage.kappaalphatheta.org|accessdate=19 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215143102/https://heritage.kappaalphatheta.org/page/notablethetas|archive-date=15 December 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1930, after her junior year, she left school and married Albert Doerr, Jr., a Stanford 1930 graduate whom she had known in Pasadena.<ref>{{cite magazine| url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,740787,00.html?promoid=googlep | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523165301/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,740787,00.html?promoid=googlep | url-status=dead | archive-date=May 23, 2011 | magazine=Time | title=Milestones: Nov. 24, 1930 | date=November 24, 1930}}</ref> The Doerrs spent the next 25 years in Pasadena, where they raised a son, Michael (d. 1995), and a daughter, Martha.

==Mexico== Albert Doerr's family owned the copper mine of ''El Orito'' in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes, in the city of Real de Asientos. Beginning in 1935, Harriet accompanied Albert on his many business trips there. In the late 1950s, the Doerrs moved to Mexico where Albert was engaged in restoring the mine. They remained until 1972 when Albert died, ten years after being diagnosed with leukemia. The time she spent in this small Mexican mining town would later provide Harriet with both the subject matter and the setting for much of her writing.<ref name=Stanford>{{cite web|url=https://stanfordmag.org/contents/late-to-bloom-she-stunned-them-all|title=Late to Bloom, She Stunned Them All|date=March–April 2003|work=Stanford Magazine|accessdate=2019-04-06}}</ref>

==Literary career== Following her husband's death, Harriet Doerr returned to California. At the suggestion of her son Michael, a 1953 Stanford graduate, she decided to finish the education which had been interrupted so long before by her marriage. She enrolled, first at Scripps College,<ref name="NYT obit">{{cite news |last1=Martin |first1=Douglas |title=Harriet Doerr Is Dead at 92; Writer of Searing, Sparse Prose |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/27/arts/harriet-doerr-is-dead-at-92-writer-of-searing-sparse-prose.html |accessdate=29 August 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=27 November 2002}}</ref><ref name="CSM">{{cite news |last1=Rubin |first1=Merle |title=Harriet Doerr takes her new-found fame in stride |url=https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0829/082906.html |accessdate=29 August 2020 |work=Christian Science Monitor |date=29 August 1984}}</ref> and then once again at Stanford. In 1977, she took her BA degree in European history. She began writing while at Stanford, earned a Stegner Fellowship in 1979, and soon began publishing short stories.

Her first novel, ''Stones for Ibarra'', was published in 1984 and won a National Book Award for Fiction.<ref name=nba1984> [https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1984 "National Book Awards – 1984"]. National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-08. (With essay by Marie Myung-Ok Lee from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://library.stanford.edu/|title=Stanford Libraries|website=library.stanford.edu|accessdate=19 December 2018}}</ref> Her second novel, ''Consider This, Señora'', was published in 1993, and a collection of short stories and essays, ''Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions'', followed in 1995. A television adaptation of ''Stones for Ibarra'' was presented by Hallmark Hall of Fame in 1988. In the last decade of her life, she was legally blind from glaucoma.

Doerr died in Pasadena in 2002.<ref name=Stanford/>

==Bibliography==

* ''Stones for Ibarra'' (1984) * ''Consider This, Señora'' (1993) * ''Tiger in the Grass: Stories and Other Inventions'' (1995)

==See also==

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060910124225/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1997/novdec/articles/doerr.html Late Bloomer by Yvonne Daley]. ''Stanford Magazine''. Nov-Dec 1997. Retrieved 2019-04-06. * [http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf1w1001tk Harriet Doerr Papers, 1933-2003] (22 linear ft.) are housed in the [http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html Department of Special Collections and University Archives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080604212605/http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/spc.html |date=2008-06-04 }} at [http://library.stanford.edu/ Stanford University Libraries]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doerr, Harriet}} Category:1910 births Category:2002 deaths Category:National Book Award winners Category:Writers from Pasadena, California Category:Stanford University alumni Category:Smith College alumni Category:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners Category:Scripps College alumni Category:American expatriates in Mexico