Margaret Sutton

Margaret Sutton (January 22, 1903 - June 21, 2001) was the pen name of Rachel Beebe, an American author and teacher who is famous as being the author of the Judy Bolton Series of mystery books, 38 volumes published between 1932 and 1967. In addition to this series, she also wrote the Gail Gardner series, The Magic Maker series, as well as several other books.

Sutton was born Rachel Beebe, in Odin, Pennsylvania on January 22, 1903. Her parents were Victor L. Beebe, a historian, musician, and carpenter, and Estella Andrews Beebe. She grew up in Coudersport, near the New York State border. Sutton found a love of storytelling from her mother at an early age, and even though she would not publish her first book for many years, she never lost her love of reading and writing. Sutton also loved literature and history, which she probably inherited from her father, who wrote "The History of Potter County."

She attended Rochester Business Institute in New York to become a stenographer. When she graduated, she got a job as a secretary in a printing office. Later, she taught creative writing to adults and many of her students became published authors.

In 1924, Sutton married William Henry Sutton. They had five children together. It wasn't until after she married him, that her writing career began. It started when she wrote stories for William's daughter. Her stories were published in "Picture World," a magazine for children, under the name Rachel B. Sutton. She also wrote book reviews. In 1932, she published her first series book, The Vanishing Shadow, about a girl named Judy Bolton who solves mysteries. The novel was published under a pen name, Margaret Sutton. William died in 1965, and ten years later she married Everett Hunting. .

Margaret Sutton and her husband, William, were among the founding members of the South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Freeport, N.Y. Additionally, Sutton was an activist in social causes such as fair housing and participated in the historic "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" in 1963.

She died at age 98 in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, as Margaret S. Hunting from her second marriage to Everett Hunting. She died of natural causes. Margaret Sutton wrote (but never published) a religious education curriculum, "Letters to Live By, which was taught in several churches. After her death, two of her daughters, Lindsay Stroh and Marjorie Eckstein, rewrote and updated "Letters to Live By" and Marjorie finished the illustrations a few weeks before her death at age 91 in 2017.

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