The Wee Tree's Christmas

Privately Printed, 1956. First edition. Hard cover. Good/No Dustjacket as Issued. A charming story of a little tree on a snowy mountain top and his parents who help make a special Christmas for young orphaned children." Illustrated by Erwin H Austin. Austin provided design and illustration services to industrial firms, public utilities, and governmental agencies. He combined his love of color and illustration and became a prolific watercolorist in upstate New York. In the 1940s and 1950s, he worked extensively with the New York State Historical Association in Cooperstown N.Y., where he provided design, illustration, display, and documentation services for the Farmer's Museum and the Fenimore House (now the Fenimore Art Museum). His love of history and illustrative drawing lead to commissions for book illustration that included: Spooks of the Valley by Louis C. Jones (1948); The Story of Medicine by Joseph Garland, M.D. (1949); Whistling Girls and Jumping Sheep by Edith E. Cutting (1951); The Golden Age of Homespun by Jared van Wagenen, Jr. (1953); The Wee Tree's Christmas by James W. Hatch (1956); and Things That Go Bump in the Night by Louis C. Jones (1959).