Smucker, Barbara Claassen

Barbara Claassen Smucker (September 1, 1915 – July 29, 2003) was an American writer, primarily of children's fiction, who lived in Canada from 1969 to 1993. She is the author of twelve books, including Underground to Canada (1977) which is still widely studied in Canadian schools and Days of Terror (1979) which won the Canada Council Children's Literature Prize. In 1988, she received the Vicky Metcalf Award for a distinguished body of writing. Born Barbara Claassen in Newton, Kansas, she studied for a year at Bethel College and then went to Kansas State University where she received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1936. After graduation, she taught high school for a year and then worked as a journalist for The Evening Kansan-Republican. In 1939 she married Donovan Smucker, a Mennonite pastor and academic specialising in Christian ethics. They moved to Canada in 1969, where Donovan taught at Conrad Grebel College in Ontario while Barbara worked as a librarian, first as the children's librarian at Kitchener Public Library and then as the head librarian of Renison College (1977–1982). Most of her books were published while they were living in Canada. The couple returned to the United States in 1993, settling in Bluffton, Ohio. Donovan died in 2001. Barbara died two years later in the Mennonite Memorial Home at age 87.