September 11, 1974

Lois Lenski, who visited northeast Arkansas after an invitation from schoolchildren who had heard her read one of her books on the radio, died at her home in Tarpon Springs, Florida, at the age of eighty. Lenski was certified as a teacher but spent most of her early career illustrating other people’s books until a publisher encouraged her to write her own stories. She visited Mississippi County in 1947 after the invitation from children in an elementary classroom in Yarbo (Mississippi County), and she inscribed her first book about sharecroppers, Cotton in My Sack, “for my beloved Arkansas cotton children.” She wrote two other books, Houseboat Girl, and We Live by the River about life in that area.