Essie Summers

Ethel Snelson Summers, well-known as Essie, was born on Bordesley Street in Christchurch, New Zealand on July 24, 1912. Her parents, Ethel Snelson (for whom she was named) and Edwin Summers, had immigrated to New Zealand from England exactly one year earlier. She had an older brother, Edwin and a younger brother, William. She grew up in a warm and happy home where reading and story-telling were highly valued, and from a very early age little Essie was making up her own stories. When a teacher read aloud "Emily of New Moon" by L.M. Montgomery, she knew then that she wanted to be a writer. When she was young she had red hair, like many of her heroines, and she has said that she had a very quick temper, which she later learned to control. Essie left school early for financial reasons and began work at Londontown Drapers and she did similar work for the next 13 years, until her marriage. Essie married William Flett, a minister, after a courtship conducted mainly by letters, and they settled into parish life together. They lived in various parts of the North and South Islands of New Zealand though they eventually settled in Hawke's Bay in the North Island. They had two children, William Temple and Elizabeth Lucia, and seven grandchildren. As a minister's wife and a mother, her life was very full, but she was still a prolific writer of short stories, poems and, for a time, a newspape…