13 Facts About Mari Sandoz

Mari Susette Sandoz was a Nebraska novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher.

Mari Sandoz became one of the West's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians.

Marie Susette Sandoz was born on May 11,1896 near Hay Springs, Nebraska, the eldest of six children born to Swiss immigrants, Jules and Mary Elizabeth Sandoz.

Mari Sandoz's father was said to be a violent and domineering man, who disapproved of her writing and reading.

Mari Sandoz's childhood was spent in hard labor on the home farm, and she developed snow blindness in one eye after a day spent digging the family's cattle out of a snowdrift.

Mari Sandoz graduated from the eighth grade at the age of 17, secretly took the rural teachers' exam, and passed.

Mari Sandoz taught in nearby country schools without ever attending high school.

At the age of eighteen, Sandoz married a neighboring rancher, Wray Macumber.

Mari Sandoz was unhappy in the marriage, and in 1919, citing "extreme mental cruelty," divorced her husband and moved to Lincoln.

Mari Sandoz began extensive research on his life, and documented his decision to become a pioneer, his hard work chiselling out a life on the prairie, his leadership within the pioneer community, and his friendship with the local Indians in the area.

In 1937, Mari Sandoz published Slogum House, a novel set in the Sandhills that warned about the rise of fascism.

In 1940, Mari Sandoz moved to Denver, partly to escape the backlash, and for better research facilities.

Mari Sandoz proved to be ahead of her time by writing the biography from within the Lakota world-view, using Lakota concepts and metaphors, and even replicating Lakota patterns of speech.