Recipient of a (USA) National Medal of Arts, 2003.
Won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award in 1975.
She attended the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Washington. She earned money for tuition with a variety of jobs, including seamstress and chambermaid.
Graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1938, with a degree in English, and earned a second degree, in Library Science, from the University of Washington in 1939.
She was the daughter of Mable Atlee, a schoolteacher, and Chester Lloyd Bunn, a farmer.
She passed away only a few weeks before what would have her 105th birthday.