Alf Evers

Alf Evers (February 2, 1905 – December 29, 2004) was an American historian who lived in Ulster County, New York for much of his life and wrote lengthy, definitive histories of the Catskills and Woodstock, serving the latter as town historian. At the time of his death his history of Kingston was nearly complete and awaited publication.

Biography

Evers was born in the Bronx neighborhood of Williamsbridge and lived there till the age of nine, when his parents moved to a farm near Tillson. He developed a passion for history from the many stories of the farmhands, the work of British naturalist Gilbert White and collecting Native American arrowheads with one of his high school teachers in New Paltz.

He attended Hamilton College and, after graduation, returned to the city and the Art Students League, where he met his wife, illustrator Helen Baker. They eventually settled in Litchfield, Connecticut, where they wrote and illustrated 50 children's books together, most telling fables in a simple prose style that earned comparisons to Aesop, and raised three children Jane, Barbara and Christopher Evers.