Teen Years and Early Adulthood
When Rawls was fifteen, the United States economy entered a depression, prompting his family to leave their Oklahoma home for California; however, the family's convertible broke down near Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Rawls’ father found a job.
As an adult during the 1930s and 1940s, Rawls became a carpenter and traveled to South America, Canada, and Alaska. He wrote five manuscripts during this period, including Where the Red Fern Grows. Rawls’ original manuscripts contained many spelling and grammar errors. Because of this, he kept the the manuscripts hidden in a trunk in his father’s workshop.
In the late 1950s, Rawls worked for a construction company on a guided missile range in the Southwest. Later, he transferred to a construction site near Idaho Falls to work on a contract for the Atomic Energy Commission. Rawls lived in a cabin near Mud Lake. While working there, Rawls met his future wife, Sophie Ann Styczinski, a budget analyst for the Atomic Energy Commission. The couple married on August 23, 1958.
Read more about this topic: Wilson Rawls
Famous quotes containing the words teen years, teen, years, early and/or adulthood:
“Children ... after a certain age do not welcome parental advice. Occasionally, they may listen to another adult, which is why perhaps people should switch children with their neighbors and friends for a while in the teen years!”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“Children ... after a certain age do not welcome parental advice. Occasionally, they may listen to another adult, which is why perhaps people should switch children with their neighbors and friends for a while in the teen years!”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,
And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“When first we faced, and touching showed
How well we knew the early moves ...”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“One of the most highly valued functions of used parents these days is to be the villains of their children’s lives, the people the child blames for any shortcomings or disappointments. But if your identity comes from your parents’ failings, then you remain forever a member of the child generation, stuck and unable to move on to an adulthood in which you identify yourself in terms of what you do, not what has been done to you.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)