She collected stories in her travels and with a degree in education focused her life on the value of story telling. She wrote for children and for adults with a steady output of published books. In 1965 she received a lifetime achievement award for her contributions to children's literature: the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award.
Here is an excerpt from one of her books for adults: the story is told from the perspective of an Irish nanny. Sawyer herself had had an Irish nanny in her own childhood. The book starts with a salute to story-telling itself. A passage from Herself, Himself & Myself: A Romance (1917):
[From a] Wise Woman who sat on a grass mound like a Druidess in the pagan days, making her prophesies and saying the wise things, a great crowd about her... [a child hears:]
"'Tis the poets ....that tell the tales of the world, but, sure, 'tis the people themselves that have the making of them. And what man or woman, tell me that, has not the makings of one tale at least to leave behind? 'Tis best remembered, this; for 'twill give ye more heart to keep your lives filled with prettiness and your hands clean of the bog-ditch."...
[Later this child is grown and a nanny, describing her charge's party]
When I came back with the tea things they were all at the table, Herself in the carved chair at the head, Paul Godfrey at the foot, and the others between them. I stood behind my dearie's chair, with so much pride, watching her pour the cups— remembering how each of them took their tea and never spilling a drop or upsetting a thing.
One minute she was shy with the surprise and strangeness of it all, the next she was laughing and clapping her hands like the childeen of old. .... Mr. Mayberry was back at his old tricks.
He brought out a nosegay of pink and white asters from under the table, while a whole shower of chocolates dropped down from the crystal chandelier above her head. There were fancy biscuits from the coat-tails of Mr. Paul's velvet jacket, and a black kitten from under my apron. The childeen had always wanted one, but her mother had no mind for pets and I had always coaxed away the notion by telling her the robins would not build next year in the lilac bush if there was a cat about.
She squealed with delight when Mr. Mayberry tossed it into her lap.
"It's all right now, isn't it, Nora? She can't scare away these birdies, can she? And I can keep her always for my very own."
.....
The book, Herself, Himself & Myself: A Romance, is indeed a romance--- about motherly love. Perhaps the story is told in a simpler time, but it cannot be irrelevant now. And it is a finely written work of art.
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