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Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, seated at his desk

Dr. Seuss wrote his best-known books in a La Jolla tower

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Photo: Al Ravenna, New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photog, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1904. He worked as a cartoonist and advertising illustrator and during World War II made animated films for the Army. In 1948, he and his first wife, Helen, moved to La Jolla and bought a hilltop property with an old observation tower.

He worked in the tower studio for more than 40 years. There he wrote and illustrated The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957 to help children learn to read, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Green Eggs and Ham and many others.

La Jolla life

Geisel was involved in the community and was known to friends as Ted. After Helen’s death in 1967, he married Audrey Stone Dimond. He received a special Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for his contribution to children’s education.

The library

Geisel died in La Jolla in 1991. Audrey Geisel gave a large collection of his drawings, manuscripts and other materials to UC San Diego, and the university’s central library, a modernist building designed by William Pereira, was renamed Geisel Library in 1995.

Some of his early works have been criticized for racist imagery, and in 2021 his estate stopped publishing six books for that reason. In La Jolla, his legacy remains a draw for visitors, with displays at the library and galleries selling his art.

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