BARBARA NEWHALL-FOLLETT
What image springs to mind when you hear the word author? (For me it's Grande Dame des Lettres Canadienne Margaret Atwood.) But would you picture a pre-teen from 1927? You should, given that Barbara Newhall Follett published two novels in her early teens. But Barbara Newhall Follett it is known more as a famous missing person, vanishing December 7 1939, never to be seen again.
Barbara Newhall Follett was born in Hanover, New Hampshire on March 3, 1914. Her parents were Helen and Wilson Follett, both writers and literary critics. Wilson Follett taught English at Dartmouth, Brown, and Yale before accepting a job at Knopf Publishing in New York City. Helen educated Barbara at home and encouraged a love of all things literary. Barbara began typing letters to friends and family and even set up her own office, all by the age of four. She counted Beethoven, Strauss, and Wagner as her imaginary friends. By age 6 she'd written a 4,500 word story - The Life of the Spinning Wheel, the Rocking Horse, and the Rabbit.
Barbara adored nature and the outdoors, playing in the woods for hours. She created her own world - Farksolia and its language - Farksoo. In 1927 she wrote a novel - The House Without Windows. In the novel young girl runs away from her life to live in nature. The novel was a birthday gift for her mother. 2500 copies sold before the publication date and a second printing was immediately ordered. Critics hailed the novel as a work of genius and Barbara Newhall Follett as a child prodigy. Barbara and her mother spent 10 days aboard a schooner ; the experience of which was turned into The Voyage of the Norman D - published in 1928 when Barbara was 14.
Barbara kept writing but could never recapture publishing acclaim. Her father left the family for a co-worker at Knopf. Wilson Follett did not contribute financially to the wife and daughters he left, so Barbara, at 16, took a job as a secretary. In 1931 Barbara met Nickerson Rogers, who loved nature as much as Barbara did. The two backpacked through Europe, married in 1934, and settled in Brookline, Massachusetts. Barbara suspected Rogers of infidelity and by 1938 she began to express unhappiness with her marriage.
On December 7th, 1939, after an argument with Rogers, Barbara left their home with $30 in her pocket and a notebook. She never returned. Rogers waited 2 weeks before involving the police. 4 months later he asked police to put up missing posters under the name Barbara Rogers. Most people would have known her as Barbara Newhall Follett. Any efforts to find Barbara Newhall Follett were to no avail. Rogers married the woman Barbara suspected to be his mistress ; Nickerson Rogers died in 2000.
In November 1948 a hunter found human remains, a pair of glasses, a size 7 woman's shoe, and a woman's handbag tangled in tree roots in a forest near Barbara's home. Police claimed the remains were of a missing young girl, but the girls parents attested she did not wear glasses, had a smaller shoe size comment and did not own the handbag. (No mention of $30 or a notebook.) Those remains were most likely the last trace of Barbara Newhall Follett. The remains disappeared over the years so DNA from a living relative cannot be tested. The likely conclusion is that Barbara Newhall Follett, former child prodigy unable to re-kindle her writing career, abandoned emotionally by the two men she loved most, retreated into the woods and became part of the natural world she loved so much.
SOURCES :
Barbara Newhall Follett. Wikipedia.
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