Flanner, Hildegarde, 1899-1987

Hildegarde Flanner was an American poet whose works were published in various periodicals and in books illustrated by her husband, Frederick Monhoff.

Flanner was born in Indianapolis and attended Shortridge High School and the University of California. She became a poet of some renown, and also wrote plays and articles. She married architect Frederick Monhoff and continued living in California.

Hildegarde Flanner, the pseudonym of June Hildegarde Flanner Monhoff, wrote poems, essays, and one-act plays.

Flanner was born June 3, 1899, in Indianapolis, Indiana, but spent most of her life in California, to which she moved in the 1920s, and where she died on May 27, 1987. An early advocate of feminism and environmentalism, Flanner's writings explored nature and the human impact on it, as well as what it meant to be a woman in twentieth-century America.

"Hildegarde Flanner." Contemporary Authors Online. Gale Biography In Context. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1 (accessed March 4, 2011).

Biography

Hildegarde Flanner was born in Indianapolis in 1899. She and her older sisters Mary and Janet were raised in an artistic environment. Their father was a woodcarver as well as a humanitarian and patron of local artists and their mother Mary was a playwright and actress. Daughter Mary became a musician and songwriter, and Janet a novelist and writer for the Chicago Tribune, New Yorker, and New York Times, among other publications.

In 1918 the Flanner family moved to Berkeley, California, where Hildegarde attended the University of California, Berkeley. Hildegarde's poetic talent flourished under the instruction of Witler Bynner in a class with such budding poets as George Atcheson and Genevieve Taggard. The family lived in Berkeley until 1923 when the Berkeley Hills Fire destroyed their home. They relocated to Altadena, California where Hildegarde and her husband, illustrator Frederick Monhoff, whom she married in 1926, lived for many years. Monhoff did illustrations for several collections of his wife's poetry.

In addition to her accomplishments as a poet, Hildegarde wrote several plays and short stories, and edited a book of illustrations by the Danish artist Kay Nielsen. She was also an active conservationist and wrote many articles on California's wilderness, as well as the book A Vanishing Land, published in 1980.

Hildegarde Flanner died May 27, 1987.