In My Heart the Joy Bells

Author: May Justus

Born: May 12, 1898, Del Rio, Tennessee. Died: November 7, 1989, Monteagle, Tennessee. Justus was born on May 12, 1898, in Del Rio, Tennessee, to a school-teacher father and stay-at-home mother. The family moved around quite frequently, but always stayed close to the Appalachian Mountains that helped shape Justus’s character and writing. “For I feel at home only in the mountains,” she has said in several interviews. She eventually attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where she earned her Bachelors in Teaching. Early in her career, she grew fond of writing children’s literature—all dealing with the mountain folklore of her youth. Her first children’s book Gabby Gaffer was published in 1929 when Justus was thirt… Go to person page >