Elizabeth Bridgers Squire

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• Reference: http://www.nclhof.org/inductees/2006-2/elizabeth-daniels-squire/ Elizabeth Daniels Squire

Elizabeth Bridgers Squire came from a noted family of letters: her grandfather, Josephus Daniels , founded and edited the Raleigh News and Observer; her father Jonathan Worth Daniels , also an editor, authored biographies and regional studies; her sister Lucy is a novelist. So it is not surprising that Elizabeth Squire began as a journalist and married a journalist, before building her own illustrious literary niche and an enthusiastic national following for her mystery novels. A Vassar graduate, Squire served as a columnist in Beirut and a reporter in Connecticut. When she and her husband, C.B. Squire, a New York Times correspondent, moved to a farm in Weaverville, North Carolina, she began writing mysteries, drawing for her first novel, Kill the Messenger, on her expertise in journalism. For her second, Who Killed What’s-Her-Name?, Squire invented a sleuth, Peaches Dann, much like herself: a middle-aged, significantly absent-minded woman who was also warm, smart, and witty. Six more Peaches Dann novels, all enlivened by humor and colorful details, were published before her creator’s untimely death in 2001.

Early on, Squire authored a collection of biographical sketches of twenty-five journalists, proclaiming that journalists have profound social responsibilities–a principle to which Squire adhered all her life. Despite the complexities of juggling career and family, she always found time to offer advice to emerging writers and support the North Carolina Writers’ Network and the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers. She served as a library trustee, and visited libraries and classrooms. She used her personal experience with dyslexia to inspire kids for whom reading was difficult, challenging them: “If I can become published, just think what you can do!”

Known in her home state and throughout the nation as a generous, energetic friend, Elizabeth Daniels Squire made her mark as writer, colleague, wife, mother, and citizen. She left us too soon, but her legacy will endure.

Œuvre

Romans

Série Peaches Dann

• Who Killed What’s-Her-Name? (1994)
• Remember the Alibi (1994)
• Memory Can Be Murder (1995)
• Whose Death Is It, Anyway? (1997)
• Is There a Dead Man in the House? (1998)
• Where’s There’s a Will (1999)
• Forget About Murder (2000)

Autres romans

• Kill the Messenger (1990)
• The Liz Reader (2002)

Nouvelles

Plusieurs de ses nouvelles sont parues dans les recueils suivants :

• Murder They Wrote II (1998)
• Deadly Women: The Woman Mystery Reader’s Indispensable Companion (1998)
• Magnolias and Mayhem (2000)
• Death Dines at 8:30 (2001)
• Tar Heel Dead (2005)

Autres ouvrages

• Palmistry Made Practical - Fortune In Your Hand (1960)
• Heroes of Journalism (1974)

TRIBUTES BY

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2012 I Remember Liz… Elizabeth Daniels Squire

Bouchercon Sunday is a fitting time to recall a shining star of the mystery world, a first-rate American writer, who won a prestigious Agatha Award and was inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.

Who left a huge hole at her sudden death in 2001, while on a book promotion tour to Alaska.

An esteemed leader of the Southeastern Chapter of MWA, national SinC, and Carolina Crime Writers, Liz began her career as a book writer in 1960 with Fortune in Your Hand, a history of palmistry, with intriguing data on hands of celebrities such as Dali, Sandburg, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Helen Keller.

PW wrote: "Forceful and engrossing!"

Kill the Messenger was her debut crime novel, about a newspaper publisher killed by cyanide poisoning in his bourbon and the menace of corporate takeovers.

Then Peaches Dann hit the world of mystery with a bang! A Southern amateur detective with a memory problem - who dazzled readers for several books: Where There's a Will, Whose Death Is It Anyway?, Memory can Be Murder, Remember the Alibi, Who Killed What's Her Name? and Is There a Dead Man in the House?

Kirkus Reviews wrote: " A talent to watch!"

I knew her as Dizzy, before I knew Liz the famous author!

A warm, gifted person, devoted wife of Chick Squire, New York Times correspondent, and the mother of three children, Jonathan, Mark and Worth.

Though she ranks high in the pantheon of America's crime literature, Dizzy's pride was in her boys.

One summer, when a group of us were having fun on the beach at Nag's Head, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, she announced — " I am the mother of THREE sons!"

Vibrant, witty, often self-effacing, Liz came from an illustrious literary family.

Josephus Daniels, her grandfather, founded the renowned Raleigh News and Observer, served as Secretary of the Navy and Ambassador to Mexico, and was a friend of Franklin Roosevelt.

Jonathan Daniels, her father, was a famous and prolific author, who also served as Press Secretary to Harry Truman.

A journalist in Beirut and Connecticut, Dizzy was also invloved in the family business in Raleigh.

She graduated from Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, where Barbara Bush was also a student, then from Vassar.

I remember Dizzy for many little things:

• Her zany earrings, her prized bargain clothes from Carolina outlets, her unique salads from her own garden.
• Her prim and proper front parlor in the house at Weaverville, next to the enormous and friendly kitchen, where we were all welcome from morning to night!
• Her genial hospitality, where friends brought their friends, whatever the occasion.
• Visits and walks by Connecticut lakes, Carolina beaches, Weaverville woods, shared birthdays in Manhattan, drinks on the lawn .
• Sharing the mystery galas, the Toronto Bouchercon, the Florida Sleuthfest, the Edgars receptions, the unique SinC celebration at St. Bart's Episopal Church in NYC, where she introduced me to a new writer in a blue silk dress named Annette Meyers, the MWA Symposia at Vanderbilt Hall at NYU.

One special memory - I wish I had a picture of this - took place one Thanksgiving Day. There were four of us, Dizzy, her roommate from days at Ashley Hall, Chick and I - sitting by a picture window in rural Connecticut. We looked out - and watched to our delight - a deer and her fawn, like two silent but majestic ballerinas, tiptoe daintily across the lawn, giving us a private performance!

We can only guess what memorable volumes remained in her brain, when she was taken, so suddenly, from all of us — her family, her friends, her colleagues, her fans.

As they said about John Kennedy… "Liz, we hardly knew ye."

Thelma Jacqueline Straw

. . . Anne Underwood Grant | Margaret Maron

A Tribute to Elizabeth Daniels Squire

by Anne Underwood Grant

A few short weeks ago, my friend and fellow mystery writer, Elizabeth Daniels Squire of Weaverville, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her death was a shock to all who knew her because Liz was someone we thought would live forever. Seventy-four at the time of her death, Liz could run circles around those of us several decades her junior. Mystery writers are unusually close and supportive compared to other fiction writers I've known. Within other genres, oftentimes writers are into one-upmanship, isolationism and elitism and back-bite without provocation; mystery writers, as a whole, go out of their way to help each other through the tangled maze that is the current publishing industry. Liz was always the first to show newly published mystery writers the ropes. She had a theory she shared frequently about why mystery writers are, with few exceptions, such nice people. "Compare what we do to romance authors," she'd say. "All day they write about love and beauty and romantic interludes. Then look at what we write about." She always grinned at this point in her telling. "My theory is that we put our evil parts onto paper everyday, leaving our goodness for the real world to experience. As for romance writers, no wonder they're so hard to get along with!"

Liz lived a life of accomplishment. Her family founded the Raleigh News & Observer and, for the last several hundred years, has wielded influence rarely paralleled in North Carolina. Her grandfather was ambassador to Mexico; her father, press secretary to President Truman. Few people knew Liz was one of those Daniels; in fact, I never heard her mention her heritage. She graduated from Vassar in spite of a life-long battle with dyslexia. She tackled her dyslexia the way she approached everything - directly and lightly, as if somehow the difficulty was a gift from God. A couple of years back, she was the keynote speaker to the annual gathering of the National Dyslexia Association.

She used her handicap to inspire kids to embrace words and the books they come wrapped in. "If I can become published," she would say, beaming to a classroom full of dyslexic youth, "just think what you can do!"

At the time of her death, Liz was returning from two weeks in Alaska, where mystery authors had gathered for a conference known as Left Coast Crime. Her second week there she had agreed to fly by seaplane out into the Alaskan bush, to an island called Skagway. While in Skagway, Liz spent each day in the schoolhouse or the library where she shared her love of books and taught creative writing to kids who never imagined they'd meet a real author.

Her trip to Skagway was the last unselfish act of a woman who lived her life unselfishly. A true ambassador for the mystery world, an inspiration to both kids and adults with reading difficulties and a light-hearted friend to all of us who knew her well, Elizabeth Daniels Squire has a place in our hearts forever. The road ahead is lighter and brighter because she lived.

These remarks were delivered in July 2001 at the North Carolina Writers Conference by Margaret Maron:

It still seems unbelievable to me that I could come to a North Carolina Writers Conference and not see Liz smiling at me from across the room. Because we lived on opposite sides of the state, we didn't physically see each other all that often and when we did it was usually at mystery conventions or literary gatherings like this. She was a letter in my mailbox, a voice in my ear, a cheerful e-mail on my computer screen. I suppose that's why I'm having such a hard time coming to grips with her loss.

One of the first times we met face to face was in 1989 when her first book, Kill the Messenger, came out and there was a launch party for the book in Raleigh and she invited me to come because we were both members of Sisters in Crime, a fairly new organization at the time. She collected regional news for the national newsletter and I'd get little nudges in the mail from her every time a new one was due. When we organized the Southeastern Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, Liz immediately jumped right in and offered to do all she could to help, agreeing to serve on the board of directors. She had such a distinctive voice that all she had to say was "MARgaret" and I knew instantly who was calling. She was such an uncomplaining volunteer that I'm afraid we all took advantage of her generous nature. She edited our newsletter for years, all the time grumbling that she'd forgotten to do this or overlooked that...which is how her absent-minded sleuth, Peaches Dann was born.

With her dry, sly, self-effacing wit, it was always a delight to do book talks and signings with Liz. And I never came away from a dinner or lunch with her without a new memory trick. "If you absolutely must remember to take something with you when you leave the house," she said, "then put your car keys with it. You can't drive very far without them." It works for cellphones, library books, or if you drop in on a friend on your way home from grocery shopping and stick your ice cream in her freezer. Your keys may be cold, but you won't forget your ice cream.

I did a signing in Asheville in 1998 on my way to a talk in Tennessee. Liz insisted that my husband and I spend the night with her and Chick and try out their brand new guesthouse. It was a lovely evening and an even better morning. That wonderful atomic cook stove in their kitchen. And those delicious muffins that she made from scratch.

I miss her notes, I miss her phone calls, I miss seeing her here at this conference. She was a very special person, a true Sister in Crime. And I don't need any of Peaches Dann's memory tricks to know that I'll never forget her.

Obituary

Elizabeth Daniels Squire, 74, of Maney Branch Road, died unexpectedly Sunday morning in Santa Rosa, California, where she had stopped on her return from a business trip to Alaska.
Mrs. Squire was the author of eight mysteries and was at work on a ninth at the time of her death. She had been attending a mystery writing convention in Anchorage and had conducted workshops in Skagway, Alaska with creative writing groups in the junior and senior high schools there. A native of Raleigh and a graduate of Ashley Hall School in Charleston, SC, and of Vassar College, Mrs. Squire was the daughter of Jonathan Daniels, former press secretary to President Truman, and a granddaughter of Josephus Daniels, editor of the News & Observer in Raleigh and ambassador to Mexico during the Roosevelt administration. She spent most of her life writing for newspapers, and a newspaper publisher was the victim in her first mystery, Kill the Messenger, published in 1990. Since then, Mrs. Squire published seven mysteries in the Peaches Dann series, all of which are in print and several of which have been published in large-print editions. she also authored a number of short stories, one of which won the coveted Agatha award. In addition to her fiction-writing, Mrs. Squire had served as chairman of the board of trustees of theWeaverville Library and as a director of the News & Observer Publishing Co. in Raleigh. From 1966 until she moved to North Carolina in 1979, Mrs. Squire was a staff reporter for the Redding, Conn. Pilot. She was a member of the North Caroliniana Society, Sisters in Crime, and was a past chairman of the Southeastern chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. Mrs. Squireis survived by her husband, B. Squire; three sons, Jonathan Hart Squire of the Beech community, Mark M. Squire of Sebastopol,California, whom she was visiting at the time of her death, and Worth P. Squire of College Grove, TN, as well as seven grandchildren. Her sisters, Adelaide Daniels Key of Asheville, Dr. Lucy Daniels of Raleigh and Cleves Daniels Weber of Maui, Hawaii, also survive. A memorial service for Mrs. Squire will take place at Grace Episcopal Church in Asheville on Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. Memorials may be sent to the Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministries at 30 Cumberland Ave., Asheville, NC 28801. Published in The News & Observer on Feb. 27, 2001.

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