Vingie E. Roe


Vingie E. Lawton Roe was an American novelist and screenwriter.

Early life

Vingetta Elizabeth Roe was born in Oxford, Kansas and raised in Oklahoma Territory, the daughter of Maurice Pool Roe, a physician, and Clara Castanien Roe. As a child she was kept from school to preserve her weak eyesight. She briefly attended Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1902.

Career and filmography

Roe wrote more than thirty novels, mostly Westerns "with a feminist twist", and dozens of stories published between 1906 and 1930 in publications including Sunset, Munsey's, McCall's and Collier's. Her stories were also serialized in newspapers. Her first novel was The Maid of the Whispering Hills, which was praised as "a big novel by an author of great promise" in a San Francisco Call review. "I stand for clean literature", she told an audience of writers in 1929. "I have never written a dirty sex story and I never will."
Her stories were adapted into eight silent films and one sound picture.

Filmography

She was a member of the Berkeley Branch of the California Writers Club, the Sacramento Branch of the League of American Penwomen, and the Author's League of America.

Personal life

Vingie E. Roe married Raymond C. Lawton, an electrical engineer, in 1907. They lived in Oregon and owned an orchard. After they divorced, Vingie Roe lived with her mother at Lost Valley Ranch in Napa County, California. She hosted annual gatherings of women writers on her ranch. She died in 1958 from heart problems at 78 years of age. Her papers are archived at Oklahoma State University.