Eleanor Ruth Rosenfeld Estes

On May 9, 1906, Louis and Caroline (Gewecke) Rosenfeld gave birth to Eleanor Ruth Rosenfeld. Eleanor's parents lived in West Haven, Connecticut at the time of her birth and Eleanor remained in the town for most of her life. Her father earned his salary as a bookkeeper for the railroad and her mother worked as a dressmaker. The family also included Eleanor's older brother and sister and one younger sibling. The Rosenfelds lacked money, but had an abundance of love, which resulted in Eleanor believing she had a perfect childhood in a perfect town. Eleanor became interested in writing and books at a young age. She wrote her own stories as a child and after high school attended library training classes. From 1924 to 1931, she worked at the Free Public Library in New Haven, Connecticut as a children's librarian. In 1928, she became the head of their children’s department. In 1931, Eleanor started at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. The American Library Association honored Eleanor by awarding her the Carolina M. Hewins scholarship for children's librarianship. With the assistance of this award, Eleanor graduated with her MLS in 1932. While at the Pratt Institute, Eleanor met Rice Estes, a library administrator. They married soon after on December 8, 1932. In 1932, Eleanor also began work as a children's librarian at the New York Public Library. Unfortunately, illness forced Eleanor to take a break from librarianship in 1934, when she became bedridden with tuberculosis. While ill, she thought of her happy childhood and began writing a children’s story. After recovering, Eleanor and her husband did some traveling before she returned to her position at the New York Public Library. In 1940, she retired to write full time and finish the book she started while bedridden, titled The Moffats. Eleanor used her memories of her childhood and family in West Haven, Connecticut as inspiration for the story. "In my writing I like to feel that I am holding up a mirror, and I hope that what is reflected in it is a true image of childhood."- Eleanor Estes, Date unknown The Moffats was immediately followed by two more books about the Moffat family. Eleanor took a break from the series to write and publish The Hundred Dresses in 1944. The manuscript began as thirty-two pages and took six months to write. After Eleanor finished her draft, Margaret McElderry edited the manuscript. It was then accompanied by Louis Slobodkin's watercolors to become an eighty-one page book. Slobodkin and Estes had previously formed a partnership when they worked together on the Moffats books and The Sun and the Wind and Mr. Todd. Eleanor Estes received several awards during her career. The Hundred Dresses won the Newbery Honor in 1945. She also won the Newbery Honor for The Middle Moffat in 1943 and Rufus M. in 1944. Estes earned the Herald Tribune Spring Book Festival Award for Ginger Pye in 1951 and the Newbery Medal in 1952. For The Moffats, Estes won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1961. In 1961, Estes also was awarded the Supervision and Curriculum Development Award from the New York State Association. In 1962, she received the Certificate of Award for Outstanding Contribution to Children’s Literature. In 1968, she received the Pratt Institute Alumni Medal. In 1970, she was nominated for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. In 1948, Eleanor and Rice gave birth to Helena Estes. Eleanor had always been questioned for writing books for children without having the experience of raising one. To this, she replied that she had once been a child and her stories were about those experiences. Now that she had Helena, Eleanor was able to use her daughter’s interests for new plots. Eleanor passed away due to complications after a stroke on July 15, 1988 at the age of eighty-two. She died in Hamden, Connecticut and was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in her hometown of West Haven, Connecticut. At the time of her death, Estes had published seventeen children’s books, one play, one adult novel, and had contributed to several magazines. While The Moffats were optimistic stories about growing up, The Hundred Dresses portrays the negative side of childhood. The main character, Wanda, is a poor Polish immigrant about whom the other children whisper and tease. They make fun of her lack of stylish clothes and her heritage. Wanda’s family feels forced to move to the city to escape the close-minded views of the town. In her introduction to the 2004 edition of The Hundred Dresses, Helena Estes tells readers that she had once asked her mother for her reasons for writing the story. Eleanor told her daughter that when she was in school, during World War One, she had a classmate like Wanda. The girl was Polish with a difficult to pronounce last name. She wore the same dress every day and was teased for this. Just like Maddie, Eleanor was upset when the girl moved to New York City during the middle of the school year. Eleanor was upset that she did not get to tell the girl she was sorry for the teasing, especially since she herself knew what it was like to be poor and wear passed down clothes. Eleanor's experience is reflected upon in The Hundred Dresses. She thought of the story as her way of apologizing and making others aware of the way their cruel words hurt others. "I have no aim other than to entertain and to do this in the most complete and artistic way that I can." - Eleanor Estes, 1983
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