Ralph Moody (1898-1982) · AuthorAuthor
Ralph Moody
1898-1982 · American author of autobiographical books about his Colorado ranch boyhood
About Ralph Moody
Ralph Owen Moody (1898-1982) was born in East Rochester, New Hampshire, the second of six children, and moved with his family to a ranch near Littleton, Colorado, in 1906. After his father's death in 1910 he helped support the family from the age of eleven. He later worked in business, married Edna Hudgins in 1922, and at about fifty enrolled in a writing class that led to Little Britches. He went on to write a series of autobiographical books, among them Man of the Family, The Fields of Home, The Home Ranch and Mary Emma & Company.
Notable works
- Little Britches (1950)
- Man of the Family (1951)
- The Fields of Home (1953)
- The Home Ranch (1956)
- Mary Emma & Company (1961)
On this site
Little BritchesRalph Moody
1950 · Postwar Contemporary · Memoir
Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers is Ralph Moody's memoir of the four years, 1906 to 1910, that his family spent on a Colorado ranch, told from the point of view of the boy he was, eight years old when the story begins. His father, Charles, has a persistent cough from his work in a New Hampshire mill, and when a cousin, Phil, who sells gold stock in Denver, promises better prospects, the family leaves East Rochester for a run-down rented ranch near Fort Logan, southwest of Denver.