Virginia Eggertsen Sorensen Waugh, a noted author of children's literature and "Mormon novels" died at her home in Hendersonville, N.C., Tuesday, Dec. 24, at age 79.
Writing under the name Virginia Sorensen, she achieved nationwide critical acclaim for a number of her books. Among her most famous works are "Plain Girl," for which she received the National Study Award in 1956, and "Miracles on Maple Hill," which earned her the John Newberry Award in 1957.Among her six books containing Mormon settings and published between 1942 and 1963, "The Evening and the Morning," and "Where Nothing is Long Ago" are regarded as classics in the field. Her first novel, "A Little Lower Than the Angels," was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1942.
She was born Feb. 17, 1912, in Provo to Claude and Helen Blackett Eggertsen and spent the first five years of her life in Manti. She graduated from Brigham Young University and pursued graduate studies at Standford University, where she and her husband, Fred Sorensen, associated with other young writers with Utah ties, including Bernard DeVoto and Wallace Stegner.
Following a divorce, she married the English author Alec Waugh - the brother of Evelyn Waugh, who wrote "Brideshead Revisited" - and lived with him in Morocco for many years. After Waugh's death in 1981, Mrs. Sorensen moved to North Carolina.
Fifteen "little books" she wrote for her husband's birthdays are scheduled to be published soon through a grant from the Redd Center at BYU.
Funeral services will be held in Hendersonville. A memorial service also will be held in Provo.