Early Life
Velma Nacella Young was born in rural Illinois and attended Blackburn College during the Great Depression. She was a member of the American Socialist Party, which she joined at the age of 22. Feeling that social norms compelled her to find a husband, she married William Jerry Tate in 1939, and they had a son, Marshall, in 1940, and twins Jerry and James in 1942.
Velma Tate worked as a schoolteacher and a secretary until the 1950s while also selling poems, articles, and short stories to magazines that included Canadian Poetry Magazine, Good Housekeeping, True Love and True Story.
Read more about this topic: Valerie Taylor (novelist)
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