Warner was born in
Putnam, Connecticut, on April 16, 1890, to Edgar Morris Warner and Jane Elizabeth Carpenter Warner. Her family included an older sister, Frances, and a younger brother, John. Her middle name came from her mother's ancestors, the Chandlers, who had settled in nearby Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1686. Her father Edgar Warner had graduated from
Harvard Law School in 1872 and practiced law in Putnam. The Warners' house on Main Street was located across from the railroad station. When she was five, Warner dreamed of being an author. She began writing in ten-cent blank books as soon as she was able to hold a pencil. Her first book was an imitation of
Florence Kate Upton's
Golliwog stories and was titled
Golliwog at the Zoo; It "consisted of verses illustrated with watercolors of the two Dutch clocks and the Goliwag. Warner presented this book to her grandfather, and every Christmas afterwards, she would give him a hand-made book as a present. While growing up, Warner loved to read, and her favorite book was ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. Being in a musical family, she was predisposed to play an instrument; in her case, Warner chose the cello, and her father bought her a cello kit at a young age. However, because of her frequent illnesses, Warner never finished high school. After leaving, she studied with a tutor and finished her secondary education. While teaching Sunday School in 1918, Warner was called to teach the first grade, mainly because male teachers were being called to serve in
World War I. Warner continued teaching as a grade school teacher in Putnam from 1918 to 1950. During this time, she also returned to school for education courses at
Yale University's summer school. Warner was a lover of nature. While growing up, she had butterfly and moth collections, pressed wildflowers, learned of all the birds in her backyard and other places, and kept a garden to see what butterflies were doing. Warner used these interests in teaching her grade school students and she also used nature themes in her books. For instance, in the second book of
The Boxcar Children Surprise Island, the Alden children make a nature museum from the flowers, shells, and seaweed they have collected and the shapes of birds they have observed. One of Warner's students recalled the wildflower and stone-gathering contests that Warner sponsored when she was a teacher. As well as her books in
The Boxcar Children series, Warner wrote many other books for children, including
The World in a Barn (1927),
Windows into Alaska (1928),
The World on a Farm (1931) and
Peter Piper, Missionary Parakeet (1967). With her sister, Frances Lester Warner, she cowrote "Life's Minor Collisions," a series of essays about humorous conflicts of temperament among friends and families. The sisters took the essays in turn, Frances writing the odd-numbered pieces and Gertrude the even. Warner never married. She lived in her parents' home for almost 40 years, then moved to her grandmother's house. In 1962, Warner moved to a brown-shingled house, Jill C. Wheeler,
Gertrude Chandler Warner, Abdo Publishing Co, and lived there with her companion, a retired nurse. In her later life, Warner became a volunteer for the
American Red Cross, a Cancer Society and other charitable organizations to help kids and adults in need from suffering. Warner died in
Killingly, Connecticut, on August 30, 1979; she was 89 years old. Warner is buried in
Grove Street Cemetery, in Putnam. ==
The Boxcar Children series==