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Zane Grey, part 1


This article is dedicated to my sister Janice Trotter Anderson who, I believe, was born with a love for books and reading, a double interest I did not acquire until nearing my teens. Long ago my sisters and I, as young girls, would sit around the old kitchen table after supper. There, by the light of a kerosene lamp, Jan would read to us. Mom would leave just so much fuel in the base of the lamp. When it burned out it was bedtime, not that any of us were in much of a sleeping mood. How could we have been--with visions of pounding hoofs, blazing guns, and damsels in distress being rescued galloping through our young minds? Oh, did I mention the source of our wonderful bedtime stories my sister read? What else but those exciting sagas brought to life by Zane Grey. So you see, my sister and Zane Grey both became two major influences on my young desire to be a cowboy, and later to be a writer.

Zane Grey was born on January 31, 1875, in Zanesville, Ohio. At birth he was originally dubbed with the name Pearl Zane Gray. It was some years later that he dropped the 'Pearl' handle, cashing it in for just being plain old Zane Grey. It seems the reasonable reason for the switch was that folks started thinking he was a girl. Now, whether this all occurred before or after he started writing his western tales is uncertain.

Zane didn't publish his first hoof-pounding, gun-toting western until he was 32 years old. Prior to that time, according to writer Bill Pronzini, in The Arbor House Treasury of Great Western Stories, Grey was just a "bored dentist" until his western literary genius was noticed. Prior to that time, seeing that his father was a dentist, Zane practiced dentistry also. You might say that, at least for a while, Zane Grey was a chip off the old tooth.

But before he could do any drilling the young lad packed himself off to the University of Pennsylvania after winning a baseball scholarship. It seems he had developed quite a talent for baseball and pitched on many city teams and in an amateur league. He graduated from the university in 1896 with a degree in dentistry. For a time afterwards, from 1896 to 1903, he practiced dentistry in New York City. But Grey didn't spend all of his time extracting molars and filling cavities. As a boy he had developed a real love for fishing and the outdoor life in general and the liking stayed with him all of his life.

The copyright of the article Zane Grey, part 1 in The Great Plains is owned by Mary Trotter Kion. Permission to republish Zane Grey, part 1 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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