Anderson, Eva Greenslit, 1889-

Eva Greenslit Anderson was born on May 20, 1889, in Surprise, Nebraska, to Walter Henry and Catherine (Ammerman) Greenslit. She received a B.A. from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1910, then moved to Washington State in 1912 to teach high school in Wenatchee. She married Leonard O. Anderson on June 10, 1915. Eva was superintendent of the Douglas County School from 1919 to 1921, then superintendent of Waterville Public Schools. She received an M.A. from the University of Washington in 1926. She was an instructor at the University of Oregon, then returned to Wenatchee High School as girls’ advisor. In 1934 she was Washington State Supervisor of Adult Education. Anderson received a Ph.D. at the University of Washington in 1937. She was named Washington’s “Woman of Achievement" in 1949. In 1954 she became a member of the Board of Curators of the Washington State Historical Society. Eva Anderson received the Washington State Press Women’s Pioneer Writers’ Award in 1963. In 1968 the Social Science Building at Wenatchee Valley College was named Anderson Hall.

Anderson became interested in the history of the Pacific Northwest and began writing local history books such as A Child’s Story of Washington in 1938, Dog Team Doctor in 1940, and Chief Seattle in 1943. In 1943 she also began to write a series of books with a co-author, Dean Collins. They published Indian Boy on the Columbia River and Pioneer Days in Old Oregon in 1943, The Wenatachee Kid in 1947, and Stories of Oregon in 1949 (later revised in 1967 as Oregon Stories ). Anderson also wrote The Varied and Colorful Career of Jack Rogers (1947), An Orchid for Grandma Little (1950), Charley Wright-True Pioneer (1950), Rails over the Cascades (1952), George Adams, Indian Legislator (1953), E. O. Pybus, Ingenious Pioneer (1954), Charles Keiser-With a Yen for Work (1954), The Spirit of the Big Bend (1955), George Adams, Indian Legislator (1956), and Dr. Isaac Hubbard-Pioneer Doctor (1956). Eva Anderson died in 1972.

(Taken from Scanlon, Jennifer and Shaaron Cosner. American Women Historians: 1770s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.)

From the guide to the Eva Greenslit Anderson Papers, 1889-1973 (bulk 1910s-1950s), (Central Washington University Archives and Special Collections)