Eunice Blake Bohanon

Eunice Putnam Blake was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of James Kingsley Blake and Helen Langley Putnam Blake.^[1] Her father, a lawyer,^[2] died in 1911, when she and her sister were young. She was descended from prominent old New England families; two of her great-grandfathers were inventor Eli Whitney Blake and classical scholar James Luce Kingsley.^[3] She graduated from Smith College in 1925.^[4]

Bohanon was an editor and vice-president at J. B. Lippincott & Co.^[5] and president of the Children's Book Council.^[6] She held a Fulbright Scholarship in 1964 for study in India.^[5] In the 1960s, she was a representative of the Franklin Book Programs, a project of the USAID; with the Franklin program, she promoted children's literature and literacy in travels through India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Italy, Israel, and through several African countries in the 1960s.^[7][8][9] She was a member of the Weekly Reader Children's Book Club selection board in 1969 and 1971,^[10] and a judge for the Sarah Josepha Hale Awards in the 1970s.^[11]

Bohanon co-wrote Portrait of Jesus: Paintings and Engravings from the National Gallery of Art (1956) with Marian King;^[12] the book was published in separate Catholic and Protestant editions.^[13] She also wrote an introduction to a 1980 edition of Azor and the Blue-Eyed Cow by Maude Crowley.^[14]

Bohanon donated an easement on her land in New Hampshire to the Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust, to protect the public view of Lake Sunapee.^[15] She also collected Indian art,^[16] and donated art to the Currier Museum of Art.^[17][18] She gave an oral history interview to New London History & Archives.^[19]

Eunice Blake married architect and children's book author Paul I. Bohanon in 1939.^[20] He died in 1954.^[21] She died in 1997, aged 92 years.^[22] The University of Oregon Libraries hold a collection of her papers.^[8]