Haddock, Doris 1910-

views updated

HADDOCK, Doris 1910-

PERSONAL: Born January 24, 1910, in Laconia, NH; married James Haddock (deceased); children: two. Education: Attended Emerson College for three years. Politics: "Proponent of campaign finance reform." Religion: Episcopalian.

ADDRESSES: Home—Dublin, NH. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Village Books/Random House, 299 Park Ave., New York, NY 10171.

CAREER: Political activist and author. Retired shoe factory worker and executive secretary.

AWARDS, HONORS: Honorary degree, Emerson College, 2000.

WRITINGS:

(With Dennis Burke) Granny D: Walking acrossAmerica in My Ninetieth Year, Villard (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Doris Haddock, or Granny D as she is affectionately known, was born on January 24, 1910, in Laconia, New Hampshire. She attended Emerson College, but left in her third year to marry James Haddock, a graduate of Amherst College. They had two children together. During her life Haddock worked at a shoe factory and as an executive secretary. She participated in a number of activist causes along with her husband.

Haddock gained national attention when, after the death of her husband in the mid-1990s, she announced that she would spend a year walking across America to bring issues of campaign finance reform to the country's attention. She left on January 1, 1999, from Pasadena, California. She walked ten miles a day for fourteen months until she reached Washington, D.C., on February 29, 2000. Along the way Haddock made a number of speeches and turned ninety-years-old. She trudged through deserts and blizzards, battling emphysema and arthritis, and was hospitalized once, in Arizona, with dehydration and pneumonia. When she arrived in Washington, D.C., 2,200 people met her, and several dozen members of Congress walked the final miles with her. She wore out four sets of shoes during her walk.

Haddock chronicles the events of her cross-country walk and recounts some of the more remarkable events in her life in her book Granny D: Walking across America in My Nintieth Year. She wrote the book with the help of Dennis Burke, an activist who accompanied Haddock across country. Haddock kept an extensive journal during her journey, writing two hours every night. Burke asked to read the journal and encouraged her to publish the work. He assisted with editing the journals into a concise book. In Library Journal Barry X. Miller called the work, "a multilayered memoir, populist reform treatise, roadside nature field book, Whitmanesque treatment of America, and philosophical summation of a life well spent." Brad Hooper of Booklist wrote, "Granny D's hilarious stories and surprisingly beautiful writing will win fans of all ages and political backgrounds." Pete Seeger stated in the Monthly Review, "If there is a human race still here in a hundred years, I think Granny D's book will rank alongside Thoreau's Walden, inspiring people to think more deeply about the future, and be more active in the present."