Parton, Margaret, 1915-1981

Margaret Parton (1915-1981) was a journalist, critic, and author. She was educated at the Lincoln School of Teachers in New York City and Swarthmore College.

Born of journalist parents who knew many of the people that shaped twentieth century journalism, literature, and politics, Margaret Parton (1915-1981) became a journalist, critic, and author in her own right. During her childhood Parton's parents, Lemuel Parton and Mary Field Parton, moved in circles that included Sinclair Lewis, Clarence Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, sculptor Jo Davidson, Will Irwin, and Berta and Elmer Hader. Margaret's aunt, Sara Bard Filed, was a California poet who was married to Colonel Charles Erskine Scott Wood, a noted attorney, poet, satirist, and Indian fighter (later Indian friend).

The Partons moved from San Francisco in 1926 and settled at Sneden's Landing in Palisades, New York. Margaret was educated at the Lincoln School of Teachers in New York City and Swarthmore College. Upon graduation, Ms. Parton took a number of odd jobs in New York and San Francisco. After the death of her father in 1943, she was hired by the New York Herald Tribune and wrote her first book Laughter on the Hill (Whittlesey House, 1945) which dealt with her Bohemian life style in San Francisco. In 1946 she was assigned by the Herald Tribune to cover post-war Japan, and in 1947, just as the British were ending their rule, she was transferred to India. While situated in New Delhi she covered the Ghandi assassination, the partition riots, and traveled throughout the Indian provinces of Burma and Pakistan. In 1948 she married Times of London correspondent, Eric Britter. They had a son, Lemuel, in 1950. Her 1959 book The Leaf and the Flame describes her experiences as a woman journalist and mother in India. After a brief stay in Japan in 1953, Parton and Britter separated. Margaret returned with her son to New York and went back to work for the Herald Tribune . Her coverage of the Sam Sheppard murder trial and a twelve part series on juvenile delinquency were widely praised. She also did general reporting and book reviews for the Herald Tribune until 1955 when she left for an associate editor position with Ladies Home Journal . At the Journal she covered a variety of social issues as they were coming into the American consciousness. After leaving the Journal in 1963 she married Alfred Rodman Hussey, who died in November 1964 after a long illness. Throughout the middle-sixties Parton concentrated on raising her son and writing her autobiography. In 1969, both her son and her mother died. Although Margaret was devastated by her loss, by 1972 she had completed her revised memoir, Journey Through a Lighted Room . Throughout the 1970's she worked on an unpublished biography of her mother, wrote book reviews and freelanced for Woman's Day . She died of cancer in 1981.

Margaret's father, Lemuel F. Parton, was born in Plattesville, Colorado in 1880. After graduating from the University of Colorado, Parton worked for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Herald and the San Francisco Bulletin . In between stints on these newspapers he prospected for gold in Nevada and explored South America. he married Mary Field in 1913. In 1926 he took his family to New York and in 1931 he began his syndicated column "Who's News Today," writing of the movers and shakers of the world until 1942. He died in 1943.

Mary Field Parton, Margaret's mother, was born in 1878 in Cincinnati and raised in Detroit by a strict Protestant father. Later, Mary revolted against her upbringing and attended the University of Michigan. She taught school in Ovid, Michigan for two years and after being influenced by Eugene Debs during a lecture, moved to Chicago where she worked in one of Jane Addams' settlement houses. She began working as a labor reporter around 1908 when she became acquainted with Clarence Darrow. According to Margaret Parton, they had a brief affair and remained life-long friends. The letters between Darrow and Mary Field which are mentioned in Journey Through a Lighted Room are in the Newberry Library in Chicago. Mary Field covered many labor trials, including the McNamara trial in Los Angeles. In 1913 she married Lemuel Parton and in 1915 Margaret was born. Mary continued to write; between the 1920's and 1940's she wrote fiction and many magazine articles. Her books include a biography of Mother Jones (1928?) and Your Washington (1938). Mary Field Parton died in 1969.

Martha and Robert W. Bruere were neighbors of the Partons in Sneden's Landing, New York. Robert Bruere was a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "brain trust" and an author, researcher, and industrial relations expert. He was an associate editor of The Survey . In 1933-1934 he was the Chairman of the Cotton Textile, National Industrial Relations Board of the National Recovery Administration. In 1938 he was Chairman of the Maritime Labor Board. Martha Bensley Bruere was a magazine writer and illustrator.