John Ernest Bechdolt was born in Mankato, Minnesota,
the county seat of Blue Earth County. He was the youngest child of
Adolph Frederick and Jean Ritchie Bechdolt. By the turn of the
twentieth century his family was living in Seattle, Washington, where
his now widowed father taught at a university. The writer
Frederic R. Bechdolt (1873-1950)
was his older brother, followed by two sisters, Matilda (1876) and
Margaret (1878).
Bechdolt was a prolific writer who began as a newspaperman in Seattle
and Kansas City. He is credited, often as Jack Bechdolt, as the author
of some six thousand short stories for mostly young readers.
Bechdolt's first wife was Mabel Claire (Glasier) of Aberdeen,
Washington. She was a well known writer on women's issues and a
successful sculptor and water color artist. She passed away at the age
of 43 in New York City. His second wife was also a
writer. Decie Merwin was a popular Kentucky author and illustrator of
children's books. She and her husband collaborated on a number of
books, including "John's Dragon" (1937) and "Dulcie or Half a Yard of
Linsey-Woolsey" (1943). Decie passed away at around the age of 67 at her brother's home in Knoxville, Tennessee.
John Ernest Bechdolt died after a long struggle with heart disease on
December 28, 1954 at the Pinebluff Sanitarium in Pinebluff, North
Carolina.
