R.I.P. | Hilda van Stockum, d. Nov 1, 2006

Hilda van Stockum (left) with her parents
Olga Boissevain and Kapitein-ter-Zee Bram
van Stockum (1864-1935) and Hilda's younger
brother Willem Jacob, c1914. 

NEW YORK, NY, October 30, 2018 – Hilda van Stockum (1908-2006) died 12 years ago on All Saints Day. She was an internationally celebrated author and illustrator. This is the time of year when her life and work is appropriately remembered.

Her father was Kapitein-ter-Zee in the Dutch Navy, equivalent of colonel in the army. He was in charge of the naval base at IJmuiden in World War I, at the mouth of the canal to Amsterdam.

She wrote, illustrated, and translated more than 30 published books. She is also remembered as a classical portrait and still life painter. She began writing stories for her younger brother in 1913. Her professional career spanned 65 years, from 1930 to 1995. Fifteen of her books are still available in English, with Japanese, Dutch, and other translations in print. Other books of hers are planned for reprinting. A biography is in the works and her life is well documented online.

 She wrote such children's classics as The Mitchells, The Winged Watchman and A Day on Skates, for which she took Newbery honors. The Borrowed House is published the Purple House Press, which won the Brotherhood Award of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. All of her rights are managed by Boissevain Books, which also publishes books of hers like Kersti and St. Nicholas, Little Old Bear, and Penengro.

Hilda van Stockum in Art
School, c1928.

Hilda van Stockum was known for her warm and vivid, but realistic depictions of family life, often in the face of difficulty or danger. Her most famous book, The Winged Watchman (1962, named a "Notable Book" by the American Library Association), tells the story of two young boys living in a windmill who help the Dutch resistance during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. This book consistently r anks among the best reviewed of books for children on World War II. It and The Borrowed House are among the top ten books out of 200 on the Goodreads list of WW2 books for chidren. 

Her books were originally published primarily by Viking Press, during what has been called a "golden age" of children's literature shepherded by the inspiring and author-friendly editor, May Massee. They were widely reviewed and were favorites among librarians because they celebrated family life and dealt with issues of good and evil – and because librarians noticed that the books held the attention of children.

The Marlins in Montreal, c1950. Standing in back (L to R):
Olga, Randal Brigid. Front: John, Spike, Elisabeth,
Hilda and Sheila. Now 68 years later, the back row
is still standing and John and Lis are also alive.

The Mitchells (1945) was a semi-autobiographical account of how Hilda's family coped in Washington, D.C. during World War II. Someone asked her who the protagonist of the book was, and she immediately answered: "The family is the protagonist. The family weathers the storms." The Mitchells includes a description of her brother Willem van Stockum, who was killed in 1944 on an RAF mission. She often used her family as models for the written and illustrated characters in her books.

In addition to writing and illustrating her own books, Hilda translated and illustrated editions of many other authors, including editions of Afke's Ten, Hans Brinker, Little Women, Little Men, and Willow Brook Farm. She was a charter member of the Children's Book Guild and was the only person to have served as its president for two consecutive terms.

While Hilda was best known as a writer, she was also a painter of some note, showing frequently in galleries in Dublin, Geneva, Ottawa, and Washington, D.C. She was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Hibernian Academy and her paintings are in the National Gallery of Art and other major collections of 20th century Irish artists. In 1993 her still life, "Pears in a Copper Pot," was chosen to appear on an Irish postage stamp as part of Ireland's Europa series honoring contemporary art.

Hilda Gerarda van Stockum was born in Rotterdam in 1908. Her father, Abraham Jan van Stockum, was a naval officer and her mother, Olga Emily Boissevain, was the daughter of Charles Boissevain, a prominent Dutch newspaper editor, and his Irish wife Emily MacDonnell.

As a child, van Stockum grew up in Ireland and the Netherlands and traveled with her family to France, Switzerland, and the East Indies. Constantly filling notebooks with stories and pictures, she wrote and illustrated a book for her younger brother, Willem, when she was five.

In 1932, in Dublin, Hilda married the roommate at Trinity College of her brother Willem (a gold-medal-winning mathematician famed among time-travel aficionados), Ervin Ross ("Spike") Marlin. 

Spike and Hilda Marlin first moved to New York City. Hilda lectured on the use of Montessori materials (she was trained by Maria Montessori herself) and published her first children's book, A Day on Skates (1934). The book, which includes a preface by her aunt, Edna St. Vincent Millay, took Newbery honors in 1935.

The family moved to Washington in 1933 when Marlin won by competiiive exam a U.S. civil service position in the new administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was posted first to the Farm Credit Administration and then to the Social Security Administration and the Federal Security Agency (later renamed the Secret Service). Hilda continued to teach, study art, and write children's books in Washington during the war, while her husband was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Dublin and London.

After the war, her husband was with the U.S. delegation at the founding of the United Nations in 1945, and then served for 20 years as director of technical assistance for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal and as senior director of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. The Marlin family followed him to these posts. He retired first from the UN, then became Director of International Recruitment at the State Department and retired a second time. He was asked by the AARP to form the International Federation on Aging, retiring for the third time in 1973. The Marlin parents moved from Washington to Berkhamsted, England to be near most of their children and grandchildren. He died in Berkhamsted in 1994.

Hilda's books, which are set in Holland, Ireland, Canada, Kenya, and the United States, were initually published by Harper & Brothers, Viking Press, and Farrar Straus. The Cottage at Bantry Bay (1938) was the first of three books about the O'Sullivan family in Ireland. Canadian Summer (1948) and Friendly Gables (1960) continued the saga begun with The Mitchells as the Marlins followed their father to Montreal. Many of van Stockum's works have been reprinted by Bethlehem Books and Boissevain continue to have a strong following among home-schooling families and children's-literature connoisseurs. Three of her books have been optioned for movies or television.

Painting was Hilda's earliest passion. She studied at the Dublin School of Art, the Amsterdam Academy of Art and the Corcoran School of Art. In the 1920's, she worked as an illustrator for the Dublin-based publishing house, Browne & Nolan. She illustrated her first book, an Irish reader, in 1930, and her last book in 2001, giving her a 71-year career as a book-illustrator. Another early illustration commission was a book on windmills by her cousin Jan den Tex, who assisted her on windmill details for her book The Winged Watchman. 

Hilda converted to Catholicism in 1939, following Evie Hone (who had earlier been guided by Hilda on the best use of her artistic talents),influenced  primarily by leading Catholic converts, famed writers and intellectuals of her day, such as G.K. Chesterton and Monsignor Ronald Knox. The importance of these opinion leaders is described well in Joseph Pearce, Literary Converts (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999). Her mother Olga joined her in conversion to Catholicism.