Don Coldsmith | Western writer, 83
Don Coldsmith, 83, a family physician who gained fame as the author of the Spanish Bit Saga novels about the Plains Indians, died Thursday at a hospital in Kansas City, Kan. He suffered a stroke June 20 after attending the Western Writers of America conference in Oklahoma City.
Don Coldsmith, 83, a family physician who gained fame as the author of the Spanish Bit Saga novels about the Plains Indians, died Thursday at a hospital in Kansas City, Kan. He suffered a stroke June 20 after attending the Western Writers of America conference in Oklahoma City.
Mr. Coldsmith was the group's president from 1983 to 1984. In 1990, he received its Spur Award for Changing Wind, one of the Spanish Bit Saga series.
Mr. Coldsmith began work in the 1980s on the novels, which chronicle the momentous change in the lives of Plains Indians wrought by the introduction of the horse by Spanish explorers.
His 29th Spanish Bit Saga novel, The Moon of Madness, is awaiting publication.
A native of Iola, Kan., and the son of a Methodist minister, Mr. Coldsmith was a combat medic in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, he was assigned to the occupation troops in Japan, where he provided medical care for accused Japanese war criminals, including Prime Minister Hideki Tojo.
He earned his medical degree in 1958 from the University of Kansas. He practiced medicine in Emporia until 1988, when he closed his practice and became a full-time writer. - AP