Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (March 29, 1831 – March 10, 1919) was a British novelist.

Biography

She was born on March 29, 1831 in Ulverston, Lancashire, England as Amelia Edith Huddleston to Reverend William Huddleston, a Wesleyan minister.

A brief return to her father's financial stability allowed Barr to return to the Normal School in Glasgow where she learned the Stowe teaching method. Its principles are based on morality and lifelong learning, rather than learning by rote. On 11 July 1850, she and a prosperous local wool merchant, Scotsman Robert Barr, married. The couple emigrated to the USA in September of 1853, landing in New York city. In Chicago, Illinois Barr tutored at home, and established a school for girls, though she was not involved for long as her husbands' business prospects fell through and they travelled west to settle in Galveston, Texas, in 1866 where Robert Barr became an auditor for the state. Yellow fever claimed the lives of him and three of their children. Barr would have a total of twelve children but lose many in their early years. Of strong constitution and well-founded convictions, Barr did not escape the severe trials of life and love.

With her three remaining daughters, Mrs. Barr moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey in 1868. She came there to tutor the three sons of a prominent citizen, William Libby, and opened a school in a small house. This structure still stands at the southwest corner of Van Dien and Linwood Avenues. Amelia Barr did not like Ridgewood and did not remain there for very long. She left shortly after selling a story to a magazine. In 1869, she moved to New York City where she began to write for religious periodicals and to publish a series of semi-historical tales and novels.

By 1891, when she achieved greater success, she and her daughters moved up the Hudson River to Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, where they renovated a house on the slopes of Storm King Mountain and named it Cherry Croft. The name has been applied to that period of her career, the most productive and successful. She remained there until moving in with her daughter Lilly in White Plains in her last years.

She had a sunstroke in July 1918 and never fully recovered. She died on March 10, 1919 in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York. She was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, New York near her friend, Louis Klopsch.