Sommerdorf, Norma 1926- (Norma Jean Sommerdorf)

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Sommerdorf, Norma 1926- (Norma Jean Sommerdorf)

PERSONAL:

Born July 17, 1926, in Britt, IA; daughter of Carl (a minister) and Mabel (a teacher) Seaquist; married Vernon L. Sommerdorf (a physician), December 31, 1946; children: Jean Sommerdorf Muirhead, Marianne Sommerdorf Dinwiddie, Delores Sommerdorf Corey, Philip. Ethnicity: "Swedish-American." Education: Bethel College, A.A., 1945; University of Minnesota, B.S., 1947. Politics: Democrat. Religion: American Baptist. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, photography.

ADDRESSES:

Home—MN.

CAREER:

St. Paul Public Library, St. Paul, MN, clerk-librarian, 1943-46; State of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, manager of governor's residence, 1969-76; U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, worked in a senator's office, 1976-77; Complete Traveler (travel agency), White Bear Lake, MN, owner, 1979-82; Travel Associates, St. Paul, MN, owner, 1982-93; writer, 1993—. Gateway and Step Group Homes, member of board of directors, 1969-99; American Baptist Homes of the Midwest, member of board of directors, 1970-96; St. Paul Heritage Preservation Commission, member, 1977-82.

MEMBER:

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Loft.

WRITINGS:

(Compiler) A Church in Lowertown, Mason, 1975.

An Elm Tree and Three Sisters, illustrated by Erika Weihs, Viking (New York, NY), 2001.

Red River Girl, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Re-Membering and Re-Imagining, Pilgrim Press, 1995, and The Privilege for Which We Struggled: Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Minnesota, Upper Midwest Women's History Center, 1999. Contributor to periodicals, including Minnesota History and Ramsey County History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Norma Sommerdorf grew up as the daughter of a pastor, which meant moving several times with her family as her father took positions at new churches. When she finally landed in St. Paul, Minnesota, for college, she decided to stay, and she has lived there for the entirety of her adult life, settling in St. Paul with her husband once her schooling was complete. Sommerdorf's books for young readers include An Elm Tree and Three Sisters, which was illustrated by Erika Weihs, and Red River Girl. An Elm Tree and Three Sisters tells the story of three sisters, Mary, Mabel, and Molly, who decide that their family farm is too barren and therefore needs a tree. The girls plant a small elm tree and watch it grow, even as they too get taller and eventually leave the farm to start their own adult lives. The tale comes full circle when the sisters are forced to cut down the tree that has become weakened by disease, but Molly's granddaughters in turn plant a tree of their own. Reviewing for the School Library Journal, Carolyn Janssen noted: "The closeness of family is portrayed gently without excessive sentimentality. The sisters are independent, take-charge, do-it-themselves girls."

Red River Girl is set in the mid-1800s and follows the life of a teenage Metis girl growing up in French-speaking Canada, whose plans are altered when her father announces they are moving to the United States. Sommerdorf uses a diary format to present young Josette's thoughts and experiences. Carolyn Phelan, in a review for Booklist, opined that "the details of everyday life are the most vivid part of this historical novel."

Sommerdorf once commented: "People who have lived in other times and places have fascinated me ever since I learned to read. Learning about people who have been forgotten by the history books and the detective work of seeking obscure facts is challenging to me. The National Geographic brought glimpses of worlds unknown to me in rural Wisconsin and the prairies of Alberta. My father was a minister, and we moved to North Dakota just a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. I began keeping a journal and writing poetry during those lonely and frightening years of World War II, an exercise I recommend to would-be writers. By saving those notes it is possible to recapture feelings of long-ago events.

"For many years I wrote occasional articles while finishing college and working at a wonderful library. During those years I read many books for children and adults and dreamed that my name would someday be on one of them. During a long life of raising four adopted children, several foster children, and numerous international students, I never lost that dream. I researched the life of the first public schoolteacher in our state and wrote several articles about her. I have used that information to write a historical novel about a thirteen-year-old girl who comes down from Winnipeg to St. Paul on the Red River Trail in 1846 and becomes an interpreter for French and Ojibwe students at the teacher's new school. After visiting China and Haiti, I began writing about some of the places I have visited and the international students who have shared our home. An Elm Tree and Three Sisters, though, is a story I heard from my mother's cousin, when we stopped to visit her on the day her elm tree was being cut down. The emotion she felt about the tree prompted me to write her story. That story, like most everything we remember, is history too."