Virginia Hamilton (20 page)

A twelve-year-old Hamilton in 1948, when she was in the seventh grade.

Hamilton at a New York City club while she was a student at Antioch College in the mid-1950s. She often performed as a folk and jazz vocalist in clubs and larger venues.

Hamilton with her brothers, Buster and Bill, and sisters, Barbara and Nina, around 1954.

Hamilton's head shots. The first was taken while she was a teenager in the early 1950s. The second was taken in her New York City apartment in the late 1960s, before she and Adoff built their house in Yellow Springs.

Hamilton outside of her first New York City apartment, which she shared with Adoff, around 1960. The couplemoved to a below-street-level single room on Jane Street and, Adoff says, “thought we were such hot stuff, living in the Village and taking our places in that wonderful and long line of writers banging their heads against the wall…but in style.”

Adoff and Hamilton in Gibraltar in 1960, after a hard day of shopping and climbing the rock seen in the photo. As Adoff recalls, “This was the first time I convinced Virginia to sell everything but the books and leave America forever. It was also our delayed honeymoon. We made our way from Bremen to Paris to Málaga to a residency in Torremolinos, Spain, where we worked on our manuscripts and took side trips. This was one of them.”

Taken in 1965 in Argelès-plage, France, this photo shows the building where Hamilton and Adoff rented an apartment during what Adoff calls their “second time leaving America forever…”

Hamilton, Jaime, and Leigh at a reception at the Yellow Springs Public Library in 1975 after she received the Newbery Medal.

Hamilton at the publication party for
Jaguarundi
. She attended hundreds of conferences and book signings at schools and libraries around the country as each of her books was published.

Hamilton, Adoff, Leigh, and Jaime at Leigh's wedding in Berlin in 2001.

Hamilton on Thanks giving in 2001. This photo was taken by her niece, Nina Rios, a professional photographer, after Hamilton's last round of chemotherapy, only a few months before her death.

All photos © 2011 by the Arnold Adoff Revocable Living Trust. Used by permission. Portrait courtesy of Jimmy Byrge.

Bibliography

Annals of America, The
. Vol. 8,
A House Dividing, 1850-1857
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Children to Read,” pp. 224-26; “Opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,” pp. 251-54; “Stephen A. Douglas: Defense of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,” pp. 254-60; “Abraham Lincoln: Against the Extension of Slavery,” pp. 276—82. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1968.

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Boston Slave Riot and Trial of Anthony Burns: Transcripts from newspaper reports containing the report of the Faneuil Hall Meeting; The Murder of Bachelder; Theodore Parker's Lesson For the Day; The speeches of Counsel on Both Sides, Corrected by Themselves; A verbatim Report of Judge Loring's Decision and Detailed Account of the
Embarkation
. Boston: Fetridge and Co., 1854.