About Ruth Doan MacDougall
When Ruth Doan MacDougall was born in Laconia, New Hampshire, her parents brought her home from the hospital to a chicken farm in neighboring Belmont. Her father, Daniel Doan, had taken up chicken farming after Dartmouth, the idea being that he could both raise chickens and write. As he later joked, “I even thought the plan was sound!” The income wasn’t enough to support a family, and when Ruth was three the Doans moved to Laconia, where Dan got a job at a manufacturing company.
Dan had to give up farming, but he didn’t give up writing. Ruth remembers falling asleep each evening listening to what she later would call “a literary lullaby,” the sound of his typewriter as he wrote at night. By the time she was six, she had written her first story and knew that she too was a writer.
After graduating from Laconia High School, Ruth attended Bennington College from 1957 to 1959. She then transferred to Keene State College to join her husband, Don MacDougall. They graduated together in 1961.
Ruth’s novels include:
The Snowy Series:
THE CHEERLEADER
SNOWY
HENRIETTA SNOW
THE HUSBAND BENCH, or Bev’s Book
A BORN MANIAC, or Puddles’s Progress
A GUNTHWAITE GIRL (a novelette)
SITE FIDELITY
LAZY BEDS
OFF SHORE
First published in 1973, THE CHEERLEADER became a national best seller. It was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, optioned by Twentieth Century Fox, and made into an NBC sitcom pilot. Since then it has been called a “classic” and “a favorite book.” Readers wanted to know “What happened next?” and thus the seven sequels, and a novelette (which bridges A BORN MANIAC and SITE FIDELITY) have taken this same group of characters from the 1950s into the twenty-first century.
The Cheerleader was featured in the “Coming of Age” article in the January–February 2011 issue of Bookmarks magazine. It was one of five 1950s-era novels chosen; the others were The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, The Risk Pool by Richard Russo, and A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White.
Ruth’s other novels are:
THE LILTING HOUSE
THE COST OF LIVING
ONE MINUS ONE
WIFE AND MOTHER
AUNT PLEASANTINE
THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST
A LOVELY TIME WAS HAD BY ALL
A WOMAN WHO LOVED LINDBERGH
MUTUAL AID
ONE MINUS ONE was republished in 2013 in Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries series.
After her father’s death in 1993, Ruth updated his popular guidebooks, 50 HIKES IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS and FIFTY MORE HIKES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
She edited his INDIAN STREAM REPUBLIC: SETTLING A NEW ENGLAND FRONTIER, 1785—1842.
Ruth’s short stories have appeared in Redbook magazine and have been winners in the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project. Her articles have been published in Publishers Weekly, the Washington Post, and New Hampshire Magazine. She has reviewed books for the New York Times Book Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, and other newspapers.
Ruth lives in New Hampshire.
More . . .
Like her father, Ruth is a recipient of the New Hampshire Writers’ Project’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ruth received the New Hampshire Writers' Project "Lifetime Achievement Award" on October 21 2005. The description on this page was written by Ruth soon after the event.
The "green book" she mentions was a small scrapbook of congratulatory notes from fans and sent to George Geers, who would be presenting Ruth's award, for presentation at an appropriate time.
In 2006, Keene State College awarded Ruth their Alumni Achievement Award. The Keene State College website describes the award, and lists recipients here.
In the column below, here, Ruth shares her memories of that occasion.
Travelogues and Essays, as well as an anthology of articles by Ruth Doan MacDougall on the craft of authorship are located in the Literary Pastimes section.
New Hampshire Writers' Project
October 2005
Ruth's description of the evening begins with a description of the welcoming refreshments, visiting with friends, and a summary of awards presented before hers.
Then Ruth's recollection continues:
"Then the master of ceremonies announced George Geers, who was presenting my award. As he walked up to the stage, I noticed that he was carrying a small green book along with papers that I supposed was his speech. The speech was wonderful (needless to say, I was scarlet by then), and I was so happy that he talked of my long partnership with Don in the writing game, as well as my stewardship of my father's books.
"But then he began quoting people--Jen, Jan, Lani, Carol--what, what, I couldn't believe my ears, at first I thought he'd been reading the website's guest book, but no, there isn't a guest book now, so what, what—?
"And then he introduced me.
" The applause, a thundering ovation, stunned me. Also Don, I learned when we compared notes afterward. I think that this was the equivalent of that line in the National Honor Society awards scene in THE CHEERLEADER when 'Tom nearly fell out of his seat.'
"That applause rocked me as I went up to the stage and continued as George gave me the award, a glass rectangle on a stand (created by Pepe Herrmann Crystal, who also did the crystal bowl that was Dan's award).
"George said of the green book, 'This is for you, too.'
"
I didn't have a chance to look at the book until after I gave my very short speech (very short for my own sake and for the sake of the audience):Thank you, George. My thanks also to the members of the Board of Trustees. And to Ann Norton, for nominating me and for writing the wonderful forewords to the CHEERLEADER novels. This award means a great deal to me, especially because it was also given to my father, in 1994. When I accepted that award for him them, I read a brief excerpt from his essay Fifty Thoughts from Fifty Years, in which he quoted from a journal entry he'd made, summing up the writing life. I'd like to read it again:
"This thought emerges: Successful or not, the years devoted to the art, craft, trade, or hobby of writing may be looked upon as having been spent in a great tradition and enterprise. What did you do with your life? I tried to learn to write.' Thank you again."
"Off the stage, back down on the floor, I opened the book and was absolutely overcome. How on earth? Beaming, George explained to Don and me how he'd received the book. I kept saying dazedly, 'It's green!' And 'It's green and the pages are white, it's Gunthwaite's school colors!' We all marveled and laughed.
 We winners were then led to little book-signing tables that had been set up at the back, where there were now also coffee and elegant pastries, cookies. In between signing books, I read the entries, nearly diving into my book-signing bag for Kleenex but I managed to stave off the tears until Don and I got back to the inn and we read them together.
So I won't start crying again, I'll tell you about the inn. Did I mention that Barbara Yoder, the NHWP executive director, suggested it when I asked about places to stay in Manchester? The Ash Street Inn is an 1885 Victorian, but it's not a painted lady. The owners said they didn't think Manchester was ready for that, which surprised us. Instead, they chose muted gray, green, white for colors. It was very handy to the NH Institute of Art. We left around noon on Friday to get there early and do our homework; that is, figure out the geography and one-way streets in that section of Manchester, which Don did better than I. It did take two trial runs on the route from the inn to the institute's parking lot, but all went smoothly that evening. The inn was just the right choice."
Keene State College
Alumni Association
June 2006
Ruth was honored on June 3 2006 by the Keene State College Alumni A\ssociation as the recipient of the 2006 Alumni Achievement Award.
Her journal entry describing the day, and her acceptance speech:
"Thank you very much for this honor. My years at Keene began as a love story, one that has found its way in various forms into many of my novels.
"I came to Keene to join my husband, Don, and we set up housekeeping at the married students’ barracks on Marlboro Street. Some of you remember those barracks. For those of you who don’t, here’s a brief fictional description from my novels:
'They were set in a field, two long sagging buildings, containing twelve apartments each. Chain-link fences bordered the barracks, enclosing a pair of narrow lawns where grass grew sparsely.' To me, it was paradise! All for twenty dollars a month! And when Don became the barracks manager, a job that mainly involved dashing to emergencies with a plunger, our rent was reduced by half.
Economies were essential to most of us living there, juggling school, jobs, and, for many, the care of children. Years after Don and I graduated, when we returned and found the barracks gone, I wrote:
'It did not seem possible that such a small field, empty now of everything but weeds and bushes, could have held so many lives.' We still get together with another couple who lived in the barracks, Terry and Bill Brodrick, and when we reminisce we simply laugh and laugh. My other vivid memories include the English classes taught by Tris Barnard. His enthusiasm for books was infectious and exhilarating. Fifteen years ago Don and I were lucky enough to renew our friendship with him and his wife, Betty, a member of our Class of 1961, and we got together almost yearly until his death in 1997. Tris’s enthusiasm for and devotion to literature never dimmed. I didn’t have a class with Charles Hapgood, but Don took took courses with him and we saw him socially—a fascinating guy, whose mind went off like fireworks and whose first book, THE EARTH'S SHIFTING CRUST, had an introduction by Albert Einstein! Amongst the many projects I’m now working on is a novel in which Charles Hapgood plays a major part. I’m grateful to Keene for all these inspirations and influences.'"