Peggy Pond Church

Margaret Hallett Pond (December 1, 1903 – October 23, 1986), known under the pen name Peggy Pond Church, was an American author and poet. She was known as "one of the American west's major poets" and was compared to poet Witter Bynner.

Born in New Mexico, her family had to return to her grandfather's home city of Detroit after a flood destroyed her father's under-construction school when she was a baby. She grew up in the area of Three Mile Lake and the family moved back to New Mexico when she was nine years old. Her father established a new school named the Los Alamos Ranch School, which she returned to after obtaining a university degree. Her teenage years would see her begin an interest in poetry and publish several prize winning pieces even as young as twelve years old

Marrying a teacher at the school, Fermor Spencer Church, soon after returning to work at the Ranch School, she worked on and published both poetry and writing pieces throughout the 1920s and 1930s. By the end of the 1930s, Church's family settled in Los Alamos while continuing to work at the Ranch School, where she met and befriended restaurateur Edith Warner.

The creation of the Manhattan Project and closing of Los Alamos to residents, along with her personal aversion to the work being done on the project, would result in Church becoming a lifelong pacifist and supporter of the anti-violence Quaker movement. Moving several more times throughout the 1940s, the family once again settled and permanently resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Church would continue to publish her work until her death in 1986. Provided by Wikipedia