Best known for her best selling The Egg and I and her beloved children’s series Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
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Born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard on March 26, 1907, Betty MacDonald’s family moved all over the West for her father’s mining career. Married at 20 years old, the new bride moved to chicken farm in Chimacum Valley. Life on the chicken farm inspired her first book, The Egg and I, but by 1931 Betty MacDonald had returned to Seattle.
Betty MacDonald spent the next several years living with her mother and siblings, working a variety of jobs to support her daughter Anne and Joan. One office job resulted in her contracting tuberculosis and becoming a patient at the Firland Sanatorium which inspired her 1948 memoir The Plague and I. Several years after her release from Firland Sanatorium, she married Donald C. MacDonald and published her first book, The Egg and I, in 1945.
The Egg and I was a bestseller, spawning hit movies and launched MacDonald as an author. She released several three other memoirs and her Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle children’s series. Her success also brought about libel lawsuits over characters from The Egg and I along with criticism for how the locals where portrayed.
Betty MacDonald died at 50 years old on February 7, 1958.
Books
The Egg and I (1945)
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (1947)
The Plague and I (1948)
Anyone Can Do Anything (1950)
Nancy and Plum (1952)
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm (1954)
Onions in the Stew (1955)
Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (1957)
Who, Me? (1959) as Betty Bard MacDonald -select chapters from her four memoirs
Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (2007) co-authored by daughter Anne
Biography
Betty: The Story of Betty MacDonald, Author of The Egg and I by Anne Wellman (2016)
Looking for Betty MacDonald: The Egg, The Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I by Paula Becker
Online
Betty MacDonald Fan Club http://bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com
The Betty MacDonald Network https://bettymacdonald.net
Betty MacDonald Society http://bettymacdonaldsociety.blogspot.com
whiskeytangowendymarie.com 