RIP, Tasha Tudor

Tasha Tudor, beloved children's book author and illustrator, always seemed to have hailed from a time so long ago, I was a little surprised to see her obit in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/books/20tudor.html this week. The nanogenarian lived a full and long life and is to thank for many happy memories. I still have "A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays" on my bookshelf and occasionally dip into it to see her dispatches from a simpler 1800s sort of world -- one that even predated herself. She brought us the joys of the Sparrow Post, precocious corgis, floating birthday cakes and the Labor Day Dolls' Fair. And she practiced what she preached -- she was a sort of early precursor to Real Simple magazine with her weaving and gardening and barefoot living. It turns out she also had some rather spicy views on reincarnation to boot. RIP.