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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My Story by Mary Ellen Lee
My
mother read to my brother and me every evening and as a child I always received
books for Christmas and birthdays. Some of these like My Friend Flicka, Smoky the Cow Horse, and Kidnaped are still on my shelves to be
enjoyed now and then. The joy of reading was give to me by my mother and I will
ever be grateful. In my adult life I read biography and history.
A bookworm I wasn't; a tom boy is a better name for me. My family lived in the country for most of my childhood and I played with my brother. When we lived in Penn Yan, NY I still played with boys for there weren't girls my age in our neighborhood. We were very lucky, we always had our mother at home.
My father sold and repaired farm machinery so a farmer's life was our life. When we weren't in school, my brother and I often went with him when he delivered new equipment or repaired old. I got to play with many different farm animals while my brother who is older than I helped our father. At one point my family lived on a farm. We had a large garden, chickens, pigs, and a dairy cow to play with and help take care of.
My family also lived on or near two of the Finger Lakes of upstate New York. We had wonderful times of boating and swimming in the summer and skating in the winter. My father took me fishing with him, from our boat in the summer and through the ice in the winter.
We always had pets, a dog for my brother and a cat for me. The two dogs in my books are named Buster and Poochy. Those were the names of our dogs.
We started our education in a one room country school where there was one teacher for six grades. There was no kindergarten for us. After graduating from high school in Penn Yan I went to Keuka College and graduated with a degree in biology. I did biomedical research for thirty-three years.
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I met my husband at work. We have been married forty-two years and lived on the shore of one of the larger Finger Lakes for 38 years. We moved to Arizona in 2008 and will no longer be attending events in and around Penn Yan.
We have dogs and cats to keep us company. I enjoy swimming and windsurfing, birdwatching, bike riding and go for long walks.
I didn't start to write for young people until after I retired from scientific research. My first winter at home I entered my grandfather's journal into my word processor and decided to write a historical novel based on it. That is how my "Danny" series began. They are based on the real life activities of my Lee grandparents, father and his sisters.
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