Vern Sneider

Who was Vern Sneider?

Vernon J. Sneider was an American novelist perhaps most noted for his 1951 novel The Teahouse of the August Moon, which was later adapted by John Patrick for a Broadway play in 1953, a motion picture in 1956, and the Broadway musical Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen in 1970. The play "The Teahouse of the August Moon" won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 1954. He was born and died in Monroe, Michigan. He was the son of Fred Sneider and Matilda D. Althover Sneider. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 1940, he entered the Army. He was a member of a military government team that landed in Okinawa in April 1945. There he became commander of Tobaru, a village of 5,000 people that became the Tobiki Village of The Teahouse. He was married first to Barbara Lee Cook.