Jane Neuberger Goodsell was born in Portland, Oregon, on March 23, 1921. Her parents, Isaac and Ruth Neuberger were owners of popular Bohemian restaurants and bakeries. Her brother was the late U.S. Senator, Richard L. Neuberger. She attended Lincoln High School and graduated from Reed College in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature.

Her career as a writer began early in her adult life, as she was raising three daughters. Her humor column, “From Soup to Nonsense,” was syndicated in the national labor press. Her first book, Katie’s Magic Glasses, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1965, her last, Not a Good Word About Anybody, in 1988. She published three biographies for children: Eleanor Roosevelt, (1970), Mayo Brothers, (1972), and Daniel Inouye, (1978). The last work won the Carter Woodson Book Award given by the National Council for Social Studies.

Jane Goodsell was a member of the board of the Institute of Literary Arts, an organization founded to enhance the work of writers in Oregon. She served on a foodjudging panel in 1977, assisting with the Oregonian’s James Beard Recipe Contest, and was an active alumna of Reed College, receiving the Distinguished Service Award of the Foster-Scholz Club of the college’s alumni association in June, 1988. She died on September 7, 1988 at her home in Portland, Oregon.

[From the obituary that appeared in the Oregonian, 9/9/88]