Ralph Owen Moody (1898-1982)
was an American author who wrote 17 novels and autobiographies largely about
the American West, though a few are set in New England. He was born in East
Rochester, New Hampshire in 1898 but moved to Colorado with his family when he
was eight in the hopes that a dry climate would improve his father Charles’s
tuberculosis. Moody detailed his experiences in Colorado in the first book of
the Little Britches series, Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers. After
his father died, eleven-year-old Moody assumed the duties of the “man of
the house”. He and his sister Grace combined ingenuity with hard work in a
variety of odd jobs to help their mother provide for their large family. The
Moody clan returned to the East Coast sometime after Charles’s death. After a period as livestock business owner in rural Kansas, Moody married and moved to Kansas City. Ralph and Edna Moody had three children.