three brothers, Lander Claassen of Florida, Walter Claassen of Newton, Kan., and Morris Claassen of Great Bend, Kan. Survivors include two sons, Timothy Smucker of Atlanta and Thomas Smucker of New york City a daughter, Rebecca Smucker-Blick of Douglas, Mich. Her husband, with whom she was honored by Bluffton College in 1989, died in 2001. Please complete this form on any Newton High School Alumni that is currently participating in collegiate athletics/activities, in a prestigious academic program, in the workforce doing something notable, or anything else that would be worth sharing that shows the success of our Railer. She met her husband, Donovan Smucker - later a distinguished Mennonite academic and pastor - when she interviewed him for the newspaper. We want to start connecting our current students and the community with our Alumni and their accomplishments. She studied library science at Rosemary College in Illinois, where she worked as a librarian.Īs a reporter for the Evening Kansan-Republican in Newton, she interviewed several celebrities who passed through town on the Santa Fe Railroad, including actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Mary Pickford and Charles Laughton, and former president Herbert Hoover. She grew up in Newton and graduated from Kansas State University with an English degree. 1, 1915, at Newton, Kan., the daughter of Cornelius and Addie Claassen. Smucker's experiences living in Chicago during the volatile 1960s informed her novel, Wigwam in the City, an account of Native Americans trying to adjust to urban life.Īnother novel, Days of Terror, recounted the Mennonite migration from Russia. " well-wrought book should be read by all children." "Barbara Smucker has impeccable civil rights credentials," a New York Times reviewer wrote in 1978. The book, based in part on stories Smucker heard as a child from a former slave, was noted for its scrupulous documentation and emphasis on little-known slave histories. Smucker's first novel, Henry's Red Sea, was published in 1955.īut it was her account of a young fugitive slave, Runaway to Freedom, that earned Smucker some of her best reviews.
Other awards include the Canada council Award and the Vicki Metcalf Award. Smucker had received numerous awards for her writing, including an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Bluffton College in 1989. A final book, Selina and the Shoo Fly Pie, was published in 1999. One of Smucker's books, Underground to Canada, was named one of the 50 best books of all time in Canada.
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