Tasha Tudor - Biography

Biography

Tasha Tudor was born in Boston, Massachusetts as Starling Burgess, the daughter of naval architect W. Starling Burgess, known as "the Skipper" and noted portrait painter, Rosamund Tudor. At birth, she was named after her father, but he was an admirer of the War and Peace character Natasha, and his daughter was soon re-christened Natasha. The name was later shortened to Tasha.

When socializing with her mother's friends, Tudor was usually introduced as "Rosamund Tudor's daughter, Tasha", leading others to believe that her last name was Tudor. Liking the sound of it, she adopted the name and eventually changed her surname legally following her second divorce. She married Thomas McCready in 1938 in Redding, Connecticut. Tasha and Thomas McCready purchased a large old farm in Webster, New Hampshire, where four children, Bethany, Seth, Thomas, and Efner, were raised. Her first story, Pumpkin Moonshine, was published in 1938, as a gift for a young niece of her husband. They were divorced in 1961, and her children legally changed their names from McCready to Tudor. A later marriage, to Allan John Woods, lasted only a brief time.

Tasha Tudor illustrated nearly one hundred books, the last being Corgiville Christmas, released in 2003. Several were collaborative works with a New Hampshire friend Mary Mason Campbell. Tudor lived in Marlboro, Vermont in a house copied from that of other New Hampshire friends Donn & Doris Purvis. Her son Seth built the replication and lives next door with his family. It is documented in Drawn from New England, and in The Private World of Tasha Tudor. Mother and son worked closely on family endeavors.