Adulthood
L'Engle attended Smith College from 1937 to 1941. After graduating cum laude from Smith, she moved to an apartment in New York City. In 1942 she met actor Hugh Franklin when she appeared in the play The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. L'Engle married Franklin on January 26, 1946, the year after the publication of her first novel, The Small Rain. (Later she wrote of their meeting and marriage, "We met in The Cherry Orchard and were married in The Joyous Season.") The couple's first daughter, Josephine, was born in 1947.
The family moved to a 200-year-old farmhouse called Crosswicks in Goshen, Connecticut in 1952. To replace Franklin's lost acting income, they purchased and operated a small general store, while L'Engle continued with her writing. Their son Bion was born that same year. Four years later, seven-year-old Maria, the daughter of family friends who had died, came to live with the Franklins, and they adopted her shortly thereafter. During this period, L'Engle also served as choir director of the local Congregational Church.
Read more about this topic: Madeleine L'Engle
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