Curious George's Young Pen Pal
Carol Greenhouse '84 met H.A. Rey, who created the Curious George books along with his wife, Margret, while on vacation with her family in Florida when she was 6 years old. She and her family remained pen pals with their fellow beachcomber for eight years.
Greenhouse recently sold her family’s memorabilia to the executor of the Rey estate. "The acquisition offers researchers a more complete picture of Curious George’s creators, while the money it brought Carol — she declined to say how much — allows her to help her daughter pursue medical school," reported Seven Days VT.
Writes Seven Days VT about the friendship:
"In 1969, 6-year-old Carol Greenhouse, vacationing with her parents in Florida, saw a man feeding seagulls on the beach. 'I was fascinated,' said Carol, now 63 and living in Burlington. 'I’d never seen anyone feed a seagull before.' The man tossed food into the air, where the birds caught it midflight, and he taught her to toss it, too.
The man feeding the seagulls, she soon learned, was Hans Augusto Rey, better known as H.A. Rey, who, with his wife, Margret, created Curious George. The mischievous monkey has been the subject of dozens of children’s books and an Emmy Award-winning animated TV series. During their two-week stay on Longboat Key, Greenhouse and her parents, Sam and Eleanore Greenhouse, met Hans on the beach several times and fed seagulls together. After the family returned home to Maryland, a copy of Curious George arrived in the mail. 'For Carol,; Hans wrote inside the book, 'from her friend, H.A. Rey.' Below the inscription, he drew and colored a picture of Curious George tossing food to a seagull diving toward the beach."