birth_date: 1912-07-24 00:00:00
avg_rating: 3.97
name: Essie Summers
about: Essie Summers was a New Zealand author who wrote so vividly of the people and landscape of her native country that she was offered The Order Of the British Empire for her contributions to New Zealand tourism.Ethel Snelson Summers was born on on July 24, 1912 to a newly-emigrated couple, Ethel Snelson and Edwin Summers, situated in Bordesley Street in Christchurch, Essie was always proud of both her British heritage and her New Zealand citizenship. Both her parents were exceptional storytellers, and this, combined with her early introduction to the Anne of Green Gables stories, engendered in her a life-long fascination with the craft of writing and the colorful legacy of pioneers everywhere.Leaving school at 14 when her father's butcher shop Essie Summers was a New Zealand author who wrote so vividly of the people and landscape of her native country that she was offered The Order Of the British Empire for her contributions to New Zealand tourism.Ethel Snelson Summers was born on on July 24, 1912 to a newly-emigrated couple, Ethel Snelson and Edwin Summers, situated in Bordesley Street in Christchurch, Essie was always proud of both her British heritage and her New Zealand citizenship. Both her parents were exceptional storytellers, and this, combined with her early introduction to the Anne of Green Gables stories, engendered in her a life-long fascination with the craft of writing and the colorful legacy of pioneers everywhere.Leaving school at 14 when her father's butcher shop experienced financial difficulties, she worked for a number of years in draper's shops and later turned her experiences to good use in writing the romantic novels for which she became famous.She met her husband-to-be William Flett when she was only 13 years old, but it was 13 years before she consented to marry him. A minister's wife and the mother of two, William and Elizabeth, she still found many opportunities to pen short stories, poetry and newspaper columns before embarking on her first novel, which sold to the firm of Mills &amp; Boon in 1956.Summers died in Taradale, Hawkes Bay on the August 27, 1998.http://christchurchcitylibraries.com/... ...more
death_date: 1998-08-27 00:00:00