Published in the Long Island, NY - Newsday July 11, 2001 Margaret SUTTON, 98, Author, by Daren BRISCOE, Staff Writer: A memorial will be held Saturday in Freeport (NY) for author Margaret SUTTON, who was a founding member of Freeport’s South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Congregation. SUTTON, who wrote the Judy Bolton mystery series, which sold more than 5 million copies, died of natural causes on June 21 in Lock Haven, PA. She was 98. SUTTON’s 38-volume series about a teenage female sleuth was printed between 1932 and 1967. The Bolton series survived the Depression, the rearing of SUTTON’s six children and competition from the Microsoft of mystery heroines, Nancy Drew. Born Rachel Irene BEEBE on January 22, 1903, in Odin, PA, SUTTON was the youngest of three children. Her parents, Victor BEEBE and Estella ANDREWS BEEBE, encouraged creativity in their children by supplying them with and encouraging them to use writing and drawing tablets, relatives said. “She was writing and drawing from a very young age,” said SUTTON’s daughter, Linda SUTTON STROH of Cantonsville, MD. After attending public schools in Coudersport, PA, SUTTON moved to NY, graduating from the Rochester Business Institute in 1920. She met William SUTTON at a church dance in Manhattan and began a relationship that would progress from games of chess and exchanges of poems to marriage in 1924. SUTTON began composing children’s stories to win over her stepdaughter, Dorothy. In 1932, she published the first book of the Bolton series, “The Vanishing Shadow.” The events in the book are loosely based on the Austin Flood in PA, a 1911 tragedy that claimed 78 lives. SUTTON’s penchant for realism extended to her characters, who aged from book to book, made mistakes, and weren’t always the most popular or best looking. This distinguished her books from those churned out by the Statemeyer Syndicate, the publishing powerhouse that created the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries. “You mention Nancy Drew and smoke would start comng out of her ears,” said SUTTON’s daughter, Eleanor KRATZAT of Stanley, WI. In 1952, the SUTTONs moved to Freeport, and Hempstead high schools. Her classes were so popular that some students repeated them year after year, KRATZAT said. SUTTON’s husband died in 1965. She moved to Berkeley, CA, in 1975 after marrying longtime family friend Everett HUNTING. HUNTING died shortly after the couple moved to PA in 1993. Besides STROH and KRATZAT, SUTTON, is survived by three other children, Dorothy WOLFE of Napa, CA, Marjorie ECKSTEIN of Melville (NY) and Thomas SUTTON of Uniondale (NY); 14 grandchildren; 27 great-randchildren and 15 great-great-grandchildren. Her eldest son, Lloyd SUTTON, preceded her in death. The memorial service will be held at 3 PM Saturday at the South Nassau Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 228 S. Ocean Avenue, in Freeport. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Author’s League Fund, which helps elderly and disabled authors with health and other emergency expenses, at 21 E. 28th St., NY, NY 1016. -- Danny & Nancy Clemmer www.clemmer.org