Her walls were covered with animal portraits, mainly by Wesley Dennis, her longest collaborator. Her home was a traditional ranch house - modestly appointed and of no particular architectural note - but with a pretty paddock and stables for half a dozen horses at the foot of the driveway. On the day of our appointment, Henry was dressed in a pale, soft cardigan. Patrick stood up to greet me and permitted me to pat him and scratch his ears. (Standards are at the tall end of the poodle spectrum.) 'He's nice to walk over,' she said.

He looked like a large, curly-haired, black colt. Patrick had lain down on his side on the floor near us. (She handed in the manuscript shortly before she died.) 'But I thought it would be nice if we got acquainted. 'I made a promise and I want to keep it,' she said of her obligation to her publisher. Henry didn't have time just then for a full interview, she told me, because she had to finish a book about her standard poodle, Patrick Henry, which would bring her published works to a total of some 60 titles. She had agreed to discuss the possibility of my writing a profile of her. Henry and I met for the first and last time in the fall of 1995 at her home in Rancho Santa Fe. On Wednesday in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., after a series of strokes.San Diego When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a premature end. She sold her first story to a women’s magazine when she was 11 years old. Henry won the coveted Newbery Award for “King of the Wind” and Newbery Honor Awards for “Misty of Chincoteague,” “Justin Morgan Had a Horse,” “Brighty of the Grand Canyon,” “Black Gold” and “Born to Trot.” Born in Milwaukee, Wis., she was encouraged to write by her publisher father. Misty, the real model for the pony in the novel, died in 1972 and is memorialized by a life-size bronze statue on the island. Volunteers called “saltwater cowboys” round up the ponies and drive them into the channel. The story centered on Pony Penning Day, a July tradition off the coast of Virginia, in which wild horses from the island of Assateague swim to the island of Chincoteague. The author’s best-known book was “Misty of Chincoteague,” published in 1947 about a brother and sister who dream of owning a wild pony. Marguerite Henry, 95, who wrote 59 youth books about horses.

Author of misty of chincoteague