Lines and riverboats, served as vice president at a Dubuque clothing manufacturer which had been bought by his great-grandfather (who worked his way from the bottom to the top of the company). Personal life On February 15, 1938, he married Marian Van Patten Grilk, an editor, who he met at Phillips Exeter Academy, raising a daughter, Anastasia, and three sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, and Samuel, and living in a 1909 Fairfield, Connecticut, home designed by Stanford White. Bissell belonged to 11 historical societies, spent his summers in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, collected antique cars to saloon pianos, and a majestic 11-foot mirror from Mark Twain's New York home. A 2017 biographical article in The Iowan Magazine noted that "his gravestone in the Linwood Cemetery contains an etching of the upper Mississippi, much like the one he had to draw to get his pilot’s license, cutting straight through, from corner to corner." He lived for several years in Rowayton, Connecticut. Bissell was a member of The Lambs from 1956. Death In 1975, Bissell moved back to Dubuque, Iowa to live in the house his grandfather built. He died in a Dubuque hospital on May 4, 1977, of a brain tumor. Works A Stretch on the River (1950) The Monongahela (1952) 7½ Cents (1953) High Water: A Novel of Adventure on a Mississippi River Towboat (1954) Say, Darling (1959) Good Bye, Ava (1960) You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man (1962) Still Circling Moose Jaw (1965) How Many Miles to Galena; or, Baked, Hashed Brown, or French Fried? (1968) Julia Harrington, Winnebago, Iowa, 1913 (1969) My Life on the Mississippi, or Why I Am Not Mark Twain (1973) New Light on 1776 and All That (1975) Influence In 2008, Elmore Leonard cited Richard Bissell as a major influence in formation of his style because he felt Bissell could be naturally funny: Awards Tony Award for Best Musical (Book), 1955: The Pajama Game, George Abbott & Richard Pike Bissell References External links 1913 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American male writers Harvard College alumni Writers from Dubuque, Iowa American male novelists American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers Novelists from Iowa Tony Award winners