Mystery Behind the Wall by Gertrude Chandler Warner

Some of her pupils spoke other languages at home and were just learning English. She read the story to her classes and rewrote it many times so the words were easy to understand.

The sight had fascinated her and made her dream about how much fun it would be to live and keep house in a boxcar or caboose. Sometimes she could look through the window of a caboose and see a small stove, a little table, cracked cups with no saucers, and a tin coffee pot boiling away on the stove. As a child, she had spent hours watching the trains go by near her family's home. Once when she was sick and had to stay home from teaching, she thought up the story about the Boxcar Children. Warner attended Yale, where she took several teacher training courses. But believe me, day school is nothing like Sunday School, and I sure learned by doing - I taught in that same room for 32 years, retiring at 60 to have more time to write.' Eventually, Ms. Warner wrote, 'I was asked or begged to take this job because I taught Sunday School. She had forty children in the morning and forty more in the afternoon. Then, in 1918, when teachers were called to serve in World War I, the school board asked her to teach first grade. She left in the middle of her second year and studied with a tutor. Later, as an adult, she began playing the pipe organ and sometimes substituted for the church organist.ĭue to ill health, Ms. Her father had brought her one from New York -a cello, a bow, a case and an instruction book. They were able to have a family orchestra, and Gertrude enjoyed playing the cello.

Gertrude's favorite flower was the violet. Along the way, she and Frances would stop to pick the wildflowers they both loved. Often on Sundays after church, Gertrude enjoyed trips to visit her grandparents' farm. Her favorite book was ALICE IN WONDERLAND. She loved furnishing a dollhouse with handmade furniture and she liked to read. Warner is best remembered as the author of THE BOXCAR CHILDREN MYSTERIES.Īs a child, Gertrude enjoyed many of the things that girls enjoy today. She wrote stories for her Grandfather Carpenter, and each Christmas she gave him one of these stories as a gift. From the age of five, she dreamed of becoming an author. Her family included a sister, Frances, and a brother, John. Gertrude Chandler Warner was born in Putnam, Connecticut, on April 16, 1890, to Edgar and Jane Warner.

Mystery Behind the Wall by Gertrude Chandler Warner