Hildegarde Dolson Lockridge

Hildegarde Dolson Lockridge (1908–1981) was a prolific writer whose career spanned nearly fifty years. Her work appeared in major magazines, plus she was the author of fifteen books—all published under her maiden name of Hildegarde Dolson.

Early life

Hildegarde was born and raised in Franklin, Pennsylvania, the oldest of four children born to Clifford and Katherine Dolson. From 1926 to 1929 she attended Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, but left at the beginning of her senior year to live in New York City. She would later joke: "The day I arrived in New York, in October 1929, the stock market crashed with a bang." She sold her first manuscript to The New Yorker, She had at least one article published on the subject of why she should never marry.

In 1965, when she was 56, she met mystery writer Richard Lockridge, and Lockridge quickly decided he wanted to marry her. Dolson loved her Greenwich Village apartment, and Mr. Lockridge lived in the country. He had two beloved Siamese cats, and she preferred dogs.

Published books

How About a Man, 1938 We Shook the Family Tree, 1946 The Husband Who Ran Away, 1948 The Form Divine, 1951 Sorry To Be So Cheerful, 1955 My Brother Adlai (with Elizabeth Stevenson), 1956 A Growing Wonder, 1957 The Great Oildorado: The Gaudy & Turbulent Years of the First Oil Rush: Pennsylvania 1859–1880, 1959 William Penn, Quaker Hero, 1961 Guess Whose Hair I'm Wearing, 1963 Adventures of a Light-Headed Blonde, 1964 Disaster at Johnstown, The Great Flood, 1965 Open the Door, 1966 Heat Lightning, 1970 To Spite Her Face, 1971 A Dying Fall, 1973 Please Omit Funeral, 1975 Beauty Sleep, 1977 "How Beautiful With Mud", 1978