Christmas Trivia - Rudolph

The Montgomery Ward Company had been giving out coloring books for Christmas at their stores for years. In an attempt to cut their cost they had one of their employees, copywriter Robert May write a story. Robert May wrote the story to cheer up his 4-yr-old daughter Barbara whose mother was dieing of cancer. Rollo then Reginald were the first names he'd named the deer before he settled on Rudolph. His wife died shortly before the story was published. He had Denver Gillen from the Ward’s art dept. illustrate the story. Montgomery Ward’s distributed 2.4 million copies of the booklet.