Gladys Taber author of 59 books, including the Stillmeadow books, and columnist for Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...

and Family Circle

Family Circle

Family Circle is an American women's magazine published 15 times a year by Meredith Corporation. It began publication in 1932 as a magazine distributed at supermarkets such as Piggly Wiggly and Safeway. Cowles Magazines and Broadcasting bought the magazine in 1962. The New York Times Company bought...

, was born in Colorado Springs on April 12, 1899, and spent most of her early years moving because of her father's work as a mining engineer. She lived in New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, and spent time on her grandfather's farm in Massachusetts. Later, she received her bachelor's degree from Wellesley, 1920, and her M.A. from Lawrence College, 1921. She married Frank Taber and they had a daughter Constance which interrupted her academic career, then for more than 20 years, she lived in "Stillmeadow" her vintage 1690 Southbury, Connecticut

Southbury, Connecticut

Southbury is a town located in western New Haven County, Connecticut, USA. Southbury is located north of Oxford and Newtown; it also is east of Brookfield. Southbury's population was 18,567 at the 2000 census....

 farmhouse, having commuted to New York part of the time to teach creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, 1921-26. The house was jointly owned by the Tabers and their friends Eleanor and Max Mayer. She died on March 11, 1980. Her column "Diary of Domesticity" began in the Ladies' Home Journal in November 1937; "Butternut Wisdom" ran in the Family Circle from 1959 to 1967.

Gladys Taber lived in "Stillmeadow," a 1690 farmhouse off Jeremy Swamp Road, Southbury starting in 1933 (summers only) and 1935 (full time).