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In October of 1948, when I was five years old, my Grandfather, Thomas Allen, wanted to stay in touch with me. I had gone home to Connecticut after spending time with him at our family's summer home in Princeton, Massachusetts. One day I was surprised to get a letter in the mail containing a delightful drawing of an elephant and a rabbit. Thus began five years of happy communication with him. When I stayed with my grandparents, Grandad tucked me in at night with stories that he made up. The stories were often about the character Aladdin (from later versions of ""The Arabian Nights""). He kept me on my toes by throwing in anachronisms such as ""Aladdin called his mother on the telephone."" I had to respond with, ""NO! Aladdin didn't have a telephone!"" He also put animals into his pictures that did not belong with the other animals or in the pictured place. The elephant in the early pictures is an example of this. So is the appearance of Shere Khan the tiger, from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. I would draw responses to his stories, but I only have two of the pictures that I drew for him. His father, Thomas Allen Sr., was a well-known artist, and my granddad did not consider himself an artist. In order to draw the pictures in this collection, he got learn-to-draw books and used colored pencils. He accompanied the pictures with stories, which are included in this book. He was a partner in a law firm, president of three companies, and director of two. He was an unusually devoted husband, father, and grandfather, and had a special feeling for and rapport with all children. My thanks go to my mother, Elizabeth Allen Nowell, who saved most of the pictures and stories that were sent to me. They arrived from 1948 to 1952. Anna Lee Ames Robinson

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After growing up in New England, at age eight I moved with my family to Denver, Colorado. I still went back in the summers to see my grandparents in Princeton, MA, but over the years I became more and more of a westerner. The turning point may have been when I traded an English saddle for a western one.Over the years, I learned more and more about Western history. As an adult I joined the Denver Posse of Westerners, an organization which stressed writing, learning, and doing presentations about the growth and history of the West. I did my first presentation about The Ames Monument in Wyoming and ended up spending 9 years working with other historians to get it made into a National Historic Landmark.I was asked to write a column for a mountain newspaper. I wrote about my ancestors who had had an effect on or had lived in the West in the 1800's. I covered topics such as: development of the railroads, sheep ranching, artists, steam shovels, mining, and the men and women of the times.

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