Ralph Owen Moody was born in 1898, one of six children of Charles and Mary Moody. The family lived in New Hampshire until 1906 when their father was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The Moody's purchased a small farm in Colorado hoping the dry climate would cure the disease.
Life on a Colorado Farm
Moody was a cowboy at the age of eight, and he was thrilled. Nevertheless, the experiences of the Moody family were filled with drama and heartache. When they first arrived on the farm they discovered the house was uninhabitable. Ralph and his father rushed to make repairs while the rest of the family remained in a nearby hotel. These early struggles seemed trivial compared to what came later, including tornadoes, destructive wind storms, and an irrigation war that ultimately forced the family to leave the farm and move to Littleton, Colorado.
Ralph Becomes the Head of the Household
Ralph was raised in a warm and loving atmosphere. His mother spent many evenings reading to the children and telling them stories, which fueled Ralph’s desire to become a writer. When Ralph’s father died in an accident involving a horse and an automobile, Ralph took on many of his father’s responsibilities. He was forced to do whatever he could to help support his younger siblings, including herding cattle to the local stockyards and selling his mother’s cooking door to door. The family eventually moved back to New England, but Ralph was restless and continued to travel through Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Ralph Starts a Family of His Own
In 1922, Ralph Moody met and married Edna Hudgins and started his own family with two sons and a daughter. In the late 1940s the family moved to California. When he was 50, Ralph enrolled in a writing class to enhance his skills so he could help his daughter with her school assignments. When the instructor read his stories about his early days in Colorado, Ralph was told that he should try to expand these tales into a book, which he did. Ralph continued writing and telling his stories until his death in 1982 at the home of his sister in New England. He was 83 years old.
A Series of Children’s Books
Most of Ralph Moody’s books are memoirs and few include fictional characters. His first book, Little Britches (1950) describes the family’s early days on the Colorado farm. His second book, Man of the Family (1951), continues with the family’s experiences in Littleton. He wrote a total of 19 books, including:
- Dry Divide
- The Home Ranch
- Mary Emma and Company
- The Fields of Home
- Shaking the Nickel Bush and Horse of a Different Color: Reminiscences of a Kansas Drove.
A Legacy of Family Values
The books of Ralph Moody still top recommended reading lists for young children because of the high moral values and close family atmosphere described in his stories. He explained his writing philosophy in a quote now published on the City of Littleton’s website: "My goal in writing is to leave a record of the rural way of life in this country during the early part of the 20th century, and to point up the values of the era which I feel that we, as a people, are letting slip away from us."
Sources
Massengill, Pat. "Ralph Moody." Biographies, Littleton History. City of Littleton Website, updated January, 2004.
Moody, Ralph. Little Britches. Norton & Company: New York, 1950.
Moody, Ralph. Man of the Family. Norton & Company: New York, 1951.
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