Theodora Kroeber Biography

Ishi: Last of His Tribe About the Author

Theodora Kroeber was born in Denver, Colorado, on March 24, 1897, the daughter of Charles Emmett and Phebe Johnston Kracaw. She graduated from the University of California with a bachelor's degree in 1919 and master's degree in 1920, and married Clifton Spencer Brown on July 6, 1920. After his death in 1923, she married the famous anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber, whose career, writings, and life were intertwined with hers from their marriage on March 16, 1926, until his death in 1961. She was also married a third time, to John Harrison Quinn. She had four children, including the noted science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin.

Kroeber traces her beginnings as a creative writer to a year-long stay at Stanford University with her husband, when she began writing to fill the time previously dedicated to family responsibilities. Her writing drew on her anthropological explorations with her husband and resulted...
(read more)