- Person
- Margret Rey
- Lived
- 1906–1996
- Field
- Children's books, writing
- From
- German-American
The story
Margret Rey was born Margarete Waldstein to a Jewish family in Hamburg in 1906. With her husband, H. A. Rey, she fled Nazi Germany and then, in June 1940, Nazi-occupied Paris, riding out of the city on bicycles with the manuscript of Curious George. In America, she wrote the stories while Hans drew the pictures, and the books became classics.
After Hans died in 1977, Margret kept working, teaching creative writing at Brandeis University and creating more than two dozen new Curious George books and short films with Alan Shalleck. Licensing of the character made her wealthy late in life. She chose to give much of the money away to institutions that serve everyone.
In 1989 she joined the board of Phillips Brooks House, Harvard's center for student public service, and she set up the Curious George Foundation to help creative children and to prevent cruelty to animals. She supported the World Wildlife Fund, the Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife and the Longy School of Music.
In 1996, the last year of her life, she made two gifts of one million dollars each. One went to the Boston Public Library, one of the oldest and largest free public libraries in the United States, open to anyone. The other went to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, now Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School that treats patients of every background.
She died in December 1996, at 90. Her will left the entire literary estate of the Reys, their drawings, manuscripts, dummies and letters, to the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi. The relationship had begun in 1966, when the librarian Lena de Grummond wrote to the Reys and they sent her a pair of sketches. Today more than 300 boxes of their papers are open to students, teachers and researchers who want to learn how great picture books are made.
Why it matters
Margret Rey's gifts strengthened a free public library, a major teaching hospital and a public archive of children's literature, all open to everyone.
About Margret Rey
Hamburg-born writer who co-created Curious George, escaped Nazi-occupied France by bicycle, and later gave much of her fortune to libraries, medicine and children.
Sources
- Rey, Margret (1906–1996) Encyclopedia.com (Women in World History)
- Margret Rey Wikipedia
- Curious George co-creator Margret Rey dies History.com
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.