[1] His father, John Lonzo Anderson, was a "circuit rider, or country preacher" serving the local Northern Methodist community.
[4]: 16 On February 20, 1905,[6] ten days before his son was born—and almost one year after his marriage to Adella—he drowned in the vicinity of the Cartecay River while "trying to cross a swollen stream on horseback after a storm, on his way to work";[4]: 16 the body was not found until late April.
"[4]: 16 During his youth, he spent his time unsupervised outdoors, leading him to later remark: "I grew up rather like a rabbit, barefoot, with freedom to wander far and wide and learn about nature by being up to my chin in it.
[4]: 16 By the 1970s, Anderson and Adams sojourned during winter season in the United States Virgin Islands, where three of his later books—Izzard (1973), The Day the Hurricane Happened (1974), and Night of the Silent Drums (1975)—were set;[5]: 98–99 in this capacity, they were based in St.
[5]: 98–99 During that time, he undertook research for his works in nine foreign languages:[6] "French, Spanish, Danish, German, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Portuguese, and Latin, in that order of competence.
[3] Upon his death, he left behind "an unfinished manuscript of the conversations of two men trying to understand how each other's minds work", and in his will bequeathed royalties from Silent Drums to the St. John School of the Arts in the U.S.V.I.