Blackboard Bear

25 May 1920 – 2006

Martha Alexander is an author and illustrator who was born in Augusta, Georgia, on May 25, 1920. She attended the Cincinnati Academy of Fine Arts in Ohio from 1938 through 1942. Her marriage to Willson Stamper ended in divorce in 1959. Ms. Alexander, the creator of so many humorous children in literature, is the mother of two—a girl, Kim, and a boy, Allen. Martha Alexander is the embodiment of the person who marches to the beat of a different drummer. It is this same determination that has made her so successful in publishing. Her first published illustrative work was not for children, but for adults, drawing cosmetics for maga…