April 9, 1991: Prolific author Louise Dickinson Rich, who often wrote about Maine, dies at 87 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
Rich, a Massachusetts native who worked as a teacher, met Ralph Rich, an engineer, on a canoeing trip in the Rangeley area in 1933. They married, fled from their workaday world to Maine and lived in a cabin at Forest Lodge on the Rapid River in Upton, in northern Oxford County.
Cut off from the modern conveniences of more settled areas, they remained there from the late 1930s until Ralph Rich’s death in 1945. His wife’s success at marketing her writing supported the couple’s growing family financially.
Rich described that experience in her best-known book, “We Took to the Woods,” published in 1942. She also wrote historical works and outdoor fiction for young adults, producing a total of 24 books and many magazine articles.
She is the subject of a biography by Alice Arlen, published in 2000.
Joseph Owen is a retired copy desk chief of the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal and board member of the Kennebec Historical Society. He can be contacted at: jowen@mainetoday.com.
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