May McNeer

May Yonge McNeer Ward (1902 in Tampa, Florida – 1994 in Reston, Virginia) was an American journalist and author of a variety of subjects, many of which were illustrated by her husband, Lynd Ward, whom she married a week after his graduation from Columbia University in 1926. In 1975 the two were jointly awarded the Regina Medal. Her first published story appeared in a Washington, D.C. newspaper when she was eleven years old. In high school she made a fateful decision to give up drawing for writing. She later settled the point for good by marrying Lynd Ward. She attended the University of Georgia School of Journalism and was graduated in 1926 from Columbia School of Journalism. That same year they married, spent a year in Europe before returning to the U.S. and going to work on the writing and publication of books. The Wards lived in Cresskill, New Jersey, spending their summers in Canada. They had two daughters.