De Vries, Peter (1910-1993) | Heritage Hall, Hekman Library

Author, Peter De Vries was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1910. His father wanted him to become a minister for the Christian Reformed Church, so De Vries enrolled at Calvin College. De Vries pursued his Calvin education as an English major and played basketball. After graduation, De Vries returned to Chicago picking up odd jobs, including a part-time job as associate editor for the magazine Poetry. In 1943, De Vries married one of the magazine’s contributors, Katinka Loeser.

Between 1940 and 1944 De Vries wrote three books, which quickly went out of print. For Poetry, De Vries wrote a flattering essay on James Thurber. Thurber was so taken by the essay, he passed along De Vries’ work to Harold Ross, the editor of The New Yorker. Ross enjoyed De Vries’ work so much so that he extended a job offer to him. De Vries accepted the position and moved out to Greenwich Village. De Vries became an occasional contributor for the magazine and a cartoon doctor, aiding the magazine’s cartoonists with captions and gags.

De Vries continued to write – one of his novels, The Tunnel of Love, even became a Broadway play and a movie released in 1958. Although best known as a comic novelist, De Vries’s sixth novel, The Blood of the Lamb, took a more serious tone, dealing with a death of a child. De Vries’ daughter, Emily, had passed away from acute lymphoblastic leukemia like the novel’s character, Carol Wanderhope.

In 1983, De Vries was honored by being inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ten years later, he passed away from pneumonia on September 29, 1993 in Westport, Connecticut. He was survived by his children - Jan, Jon, and Derek - along with 2 grandsons.