John G. Neihardt (Cyclopedia of World Authors)
John Greenleaf Neihardt (NI-hahrt) was born in 1881 near Sharpsburg, Illinois, to Nicholas and Alice Culler Neihardt. His father gave him the middle name “Greenleaf” after the poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The young Neihardt later changed his middle name to “Gneisenau” after an ancestral name. When Neihardt was eleven years old, he became deathly ill. While lying in the delirium caused by the illness, he experienced a life-altering “fever dream.” It was during this “dream” that Neihardt said he felt the presence of a “spirit brother” urging him to a life of writing...
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