Dorothy Straight

Dorothy Straight was born on May 25, 1958, in Washington, D.C. She is the daughter of Michael Whitney Straight (1916–2004) and Belinda Booth Crompton (1920–2015).[1] Her siblings include David Straight, Michael Straight Jr., Susan Straight, and Dinah Straight.[5]

Straight was named after her paternal grandmother, Dorothy Payne Whitney (1887–1968), the daughter of William Collins Whitney, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy during the Cleveland administration, and Flora Payne, the daughter of Senator Henry B. Payne of Ohio and sister of Col. Oliver Hazard Payne.[6] Straight's paternal grandfather was Willard Dickerman Straight (1880–1918), the son of Henry Harrison Straight (1846–1886). After her grandfather died of influenza during the 1918 pandemic, while serving with the United States Army in France during World War I,[7] her grandmother married Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893–1974). Her father's siblings included Whitney Willard Straight and Beatrice Whitney Straight, an Academy Award winning actress.[5] Her maternal grandmother, Lillian Crompton Tobey,[8] was the widow of U.S. Senator Charles Tobey (1880–1953).[1]

In 1962, Straight, in response to her mother's question of "Who made the world?", wrote and drew her response all in one evening.[9] Her parents loved it so much that they sent it to Pantheon Books which published it in 1964, making her the youngest published author.[10][11] Kirkus Reviews praised her work as a child, writing:[9]

Her art work is in the mainstream of the Kindergarten approach to paint and paper -- totally refreshing use of color and a wild approximation of shape. Her concept of God's activities during the Creation are nothing if not complete -- after inventing the jungle and its wild animals, he went on to pins and thread, birds and bees. The importance children place on the familiar and the furniture of their surroundings comes through in Dorothy's words and pictures.[9]

• Whitney family