Summer of My German Soldier (25 page)

Bette (far right, wearing cowboy boots) next to her mother, Sadie, and across from her father, Arthur, “the best-dressed man in Parkin,” in their store, Evensky’s Dry Goods, in 1941. Evensky’s Dry Goods was the inspiration for the Bergen Department Store, the epicenter of
Summer of My German Soldier
, where Patty meets Anton.

Bette (right), age eight, with her younger sister, Marcia, and mother, Sadie, in their victory garden outside their home in Parkin, Arkansas.

Bette’s 1954 Alliance Français student ID card. Her time in Paris served as inspiration for her book
Morning Is a Long Time Coming
, the sequel to
Summer of My German Soldier
.

Bette Greene at age eighteen in Paris, France. This portrait was taken by her lover, French photographer Roger LeGrand, who would later serve as Bette’s inspiration for the character Roger, a freelance photographer—and Patty Bergen’s lover—in
Morning Is a Long Time Coming.

Newlyweds Dr. and Mrs. Donald Sumner Greene cutting their wedding cake on June 14, 1959, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Bette Greene with Dr. William St. John and Massachusetts governor John Volpe, who is signing the Commonwealth’s Mental Health Bill, in 1960. Bette helped write and edit the text of the bill with Massachusetts lawmakers.

Bette holding her first child, Carla, at their house in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1964.

The Greene family at their home in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1975. From left to right: husband Donald, Bette, son Jordan, and daughter Carla. It was in this home that Bette wrote the groundbreaking
Summer of My German Soldier
.

Bette during a visit to Los Arboles Middle School in Marina, California, in 1988. Bette made many of these school visits, talking to students about writing and challenging them, as she often does in her books, to “speak their truth.”

Bette signing copies of
The Drowning of Stephan Jones
at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Annual Conference in 1991. The book, based on the true story of the murder of Charlie Howard in Bangor, Maine, in 1984, went on to join
Summer of My German Soldier
on the ALA list of Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2001.

Bette at the Dewey Boatyard in Culebra, Puerto Rico, where she lives part-time in her island home. Here, she joins the locals in calling for government aid after the destruction caused by Hurricane Earl in 2010.

Bette editing a new book series on her iPad in her garden in Boston, Massachusetts, with her cat, Polly Ester, in 2011.