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Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections LibraryP.O. Box 400110
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
URL: https://small.library.virginia.edu/
Ellen Welch
Administrative Information
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research use.
Preferred Citation
MSS 16585,Lesley Frost photograph, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
This collection was a gift from Mike Cotter to the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library in 2014.
Biographical / Historical
Lesley Frost Ballantine (1899-1983), an author of children's books and lecturer on English literature, and was the only surviving child of the poet Robert Frost, who had five children. She formerly lived in Manhattan, and moved to Fairfield in 1980.
Among her books were ''Digging Down to China,'' ''Not Really,'' ''Really, Not Really,'' and ''Going on Two.'' Mrs. Ballantine also wrote the autobiographical ''New Hampshire's Child: the Derry Journals of Lesley Frost.''
She was a former member of the faculty of the King-Smith Studio School for Girls in Washington, and of Rockford College in Rockford, Ill. She was also a lecturer on United States culture for the State Department.
In 1945, Mrs. Ballantine was named head of the United States Information Library in Madrid, operated by the Office of War Information. The library later became the American Library in Madrid, with Mrs. Ballantine in charge.
In 1967, she established La Escuela de la Tahona, a Spanishlanguage and culture school in La Granja, near Madrid, where she had a home.
Mrs. Ballantine was the wife of Dr. Joseph Ballantine, who was head of the State Department's Far Eastern Division under Secretary of State Cordell Hull. He died in 1973. She is survived by two daughters, Elinor Wilber, of Fairfield, who is a State Representative, and Dr. Lesley Francis, of Washington; seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Source: "Lesley Ballantine, 84; Wrote Children's Books" New York Times Archive https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/12/obituaries/lesley-ballantine-84-wrote-children-s-books.html A version of this article appears in print on July 12, 1983, Section B, Page 5 of the National edition.