Sue Hubbell (1935–2018)
Author of A Country Year: Living the Questions
About the Author
Sue Hubbell was born Suzanne Gilbert in Kalamazoo, Michigan on January 28, 1935. She received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California in 1956 and a master's degree in library science from Drexel University in 1965. She worked as a librarian at Trenton State show more College and as a periodicals librarian at Brown University. In 1972, she and her first husband moved to a farm in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and took up beekeeping. To supplement the income from honey sales, she wrote freelance articles for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. After they divorced, she continued to run the large beekeeping operation. She also wrote several books including A Country Year: Living the Questions, A Book of Bees: And How to Keep Them, Far-Flung Hubbell: Essays from the American Road, and Waiting for Aphrodite: Journeys Into the Time Before Bones. She suffered from dementia and decided to stop eating and drinking on September 9, 2018 because she did not want to eventually be placed under indefinite institutional care. She died on October 13, 2018 at the age of 83. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Robert Giard
Works by Sue Hubbell
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Other names
- Gilbert, Suzanne (birth name)
- Birthdate
- 1935-01-28
- Date of death
- 2018-10-13
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
- Place of death
- Bar Harbor, Maine, USA
- Places of residence
- Washington, D.C., USA
Moorestown, New Jersey, USA
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Trenton, New Jersey, USA
Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Missouri, USA (show all 7)
Milbridge, Maine, USA - Education
- University of Michigan
Swarthmore College
Western Normal High School
University of Southern California (BA - Journalism)
Drexel University (MLS) - Occupations
- librarian
beekeeper
journalist
columnist
memoirist
essayist - Relationships
- Gilbert, Bil (brother)
- Organizations
- Brown University
The New Yorker
The New York Times
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Also by
- 5
- Members
- 1,640
- Popularity
- #15,669
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 50
- ISBNs
- 53
- Languages
- 4
- Favorited
- 10
- Touchstones
- 32
In "A Country Year", the author tells little short stories of her experiences and lessons learned from nature while harvesting honey from her honeybees on her, roughly, 100 acre farm in the Ozarks in Missouri. Although 50 years old and just divorced, she hardly lets you in on the details of her starting over on her own, or even the hardships. She's a very fluid writer.
Her father, a botanist, taught her to love, care, appreciate, and have great respect for all things in nature. This book is more about that appreciation and love for nature, which is why I really enjoyed it. A part of her personality is just like mine. She loves weeds, and so do I. When we come across an unfamiliar weed or insect, we both go to extremes to find out what it's all about. Is it native? Is it beneficial? For whom or what? What is its purpose? We want to know everything about it, and then...let it be.
One of her long time friends was a botanist and an artist who liked to draw the wildflowers or weeds that she came across to help her remember the details about them. A great idea, and something I would love to start doing. It's about slowing down.… (more)