Jack Schaefer facts for kids

Jack Warner Schaefer (born November 19, 1907 – died January 1991) was an American writer. He is famous for his exciting stories about the American Old West, often called "Westerns." His most well-known book is the novel Shane, published in 1949, which many people consider the best Western novel ever written. He also wrote a popular children's book called Stubby Pringle's Christmas in 1964.

Early Life and Education

Jack Warren Schaefer was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents, Carl and Minnie Schaefer, loved to read, and his father was good friends with the famous poet Carl Sandburg. Jack loved reading from a young age. He enjoyed adventure stories by authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alexandre Dumas. Later, he read classic writers like Charles Dickens and Zane Grey. He even called himself a "literary nut" because he loved books so much!

In 1929, Schaefer graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in English. He then went to graduate school at Columbia University but left because he wasn't allowed to write his master's paper about the history of movies. During his education, he studied a lot about ancient Greek and Roman myths. This knowledge helped him create the strong, heroic characters in his Western stories.

A Career in Writing

After leaving Columbia University, Schaefer started working as a journalist. He had a long career writing for different newspapers and news agencies. He wrote many news stories, special articles, and opinion pieces. He also wrote thousands of reviews for books, movies, and plays.

In the 1930s, Schaefer worked as an education director at a reformatory in Connecticut. Later, he worked in advertising and as a freelance writer. Eventually, he decided to focus on writing fiction stories.

Writing Western Stories

When Jack Schaefer was a child, he loved reading Zane Grey's Western novels and was fascinated by the American Old West. He later studied American history, which gave him many ideas for his Western books. In 1945, he started writing fiction in his free time to relax.

His first story, Rider from Nowhere, was published in a magazine that same year. This story became the basis for his first novel, Shane, which was published four years later. Shane was set in Wyoming and became a huge success!

It's interesting to know that when Schaefer wrote Shane, he had never traveled farther west than his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. A writer named Ollie Reed Jr. once said that Schaefer could write such a great Western story without ever seeing the West because he did a lot of research, cared about facts, and was a wonderful storyteller. His newspaper work helped him develop these skills.

Some of Schaefer's other popular Western novels include:

• First Blood (1953)
• The Canyon (1953)
• Company of Cowards (1957)
• Monty Walsh (1963)

Schaefer himself said that Monte Walsh and The Canyon were his favorite books.

Books Made into Movies

Many of Jack Schaefer's stories have been turned into movies and TV shows.

• His novel Shane was made into a classic 1953 film starring Alan Ladd. There was also a short-lived television series in 1966.
• His story First Blood became the 1953 film The Silver Whip.
• Hanging's for the Lucky was adapted into the 1956 film Tribute to a Bad Man.
• Sergeant Houck became the 1957 film Trooper Hook.
• The novel Company of Cowards was made into the 1964 movie Advance to the Rear.
• Monte Walsh was loosely adapted into a 1970 film and again as a 2003 television film.
• His children's book Stubby Pringle's Christmas was also made into a television film in 1978.

Caring for Nature

Later in his life, Jack Schaefer became very concerned about how humans were affecting the environment. After writing his last Western, "Mavericks," in 1967, he became a strong supporter of protecting nature, also known as a conservationist.

He wrote three essays that were like conversations with animals. These were published in a book called Conversations with a Pocket Gopher. His last book, American Bestiary, came out in 1975 and was also about animals and nature.

Personal Life

Jack Schaefer married Eugenia Ives in 1931, and they had three sons and one daughter. They divorced in 1948, and a year later, Schaefer married Louise Deans.

In 1955, Schaefer took a train trip out West to research old cowboy towns for a magazine. After this trip, he sold his farm in Connecticut and moved to a ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. He lived in an old adobe house there.

Schaefer passed away in Santa Fe in 1991. At his funeral, his friend Archie West, who was the inspiration for the character Monte Walsh, read from the last pages of the Monte Walsh novel, which describe a cowboy's burial.

Awards and Legacy

Jack Schaefer received several important awards for his writing:

• In 1975, he won the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement award.
• His novel Shane has been translated into 35 languages since it was published in 1949. The Western Writers of America honored it as the best Western novel. Fifty years after it was published, Shane had sold over 12 million copies!
• Schaefer's 1960 book, Old Ramon, won a Newbery Honor award, which is a big award for children's literature. It also won the Ohioana Book Award in 1961 and was chosen as a Notable book by the American Library Association.

A review in The New York Times in 1967 said that Jack Schaefer was "not a writer of conventional westerns." Instead, his stories were "tightly constructed" and had "additional ingredients that make for complex storytelling," meaning they were deeper and more interesting than typical Westerns.

Books by Jack Schaefer

• Shane (1949)
• First Blood (1953)
• The Big Range (1953) (short stories)
• The Canyon (1953)
• The Piors (1984) (short stories)
• Out West: An Anthology of Stories (1955) (Editor)
• Company of Cowards (1957)
• The Kean Land and Other Stories (1959)
• Old Ramon (1960)
• Tales from the West (1961)
• Incident on the Trail (1962)
• The Plainsmen (1963) (children's book)
• Monte Walsh (1963)
• The Great Endurance Horse Race: 600 Miles on a Single Mount, 1908, from Evanston, Wyoming, to Denver (1963)
• Shane and other stories (1963) (published by Andre Deutsch, London)
• Stubby Pringle's Christmas (1964) (children's book)
• Heroes without Glory: Some Goodmen of the Old West (1965)
• Collected Stories (1966)
• Adolphe Francis Alphonse Bandelier (1966)
• New Mexico (1967)
• The Short Novels of Jack Schaefer (1967)
• Mavericks (1967) (children's book)
• Hal West: Western Gallery (1971)
• An American Bestiary (1973)
• Conversations with a Pocket Gopher and Other Outspoken Neighbors (1978)
• Jack Schaefer and the American West: Eight Stories (1978) (edited by C.E.J. Smith)
• The Collected Stories of Jack Schaefer (1985)