Background
Shirley Sargent (b. 1927) is a publisher and author who writes both
fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Many of her works focus on the
history of Yosemite National Park or use Yosemite as a setting. When she was
nine years old, her father, jobless because of the Depression, brought his
family there while he worked as an engineer during construction of the modern
Big Oak Flat and Tioga roads. Although confined to a wheel chair since age
fourteen by a rare crippling disease, Sargent received an A.A. from Pasadena
City College (1947) and worked for eleven years as head teacher at a Nursery
School (1948-1959) in Pasadena, Calif. Since 1961 she has lived just outside
Yosemite National Park on her Flying Spur Ranch. Sargent founded the Flying
Spur Press with author Hank Johnston to gain more effective financial control
of her publications. She is the recipient of a number of awards including:
Honorable Mentions in the Dodd, Mead Prize Competition (1955) for Pipeline Down
the Valley and the James D. Phelan Award (1964) for Galen Clark, Yosemite
Guardian; and Awards of Merit from the Conference of California Historical
Societies (1971) and the California Historical Society.