Following is a biography from
THE NATIONAL CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
Vol. 46 (New York: James T. White and Company, 1963), p. 146-147

    BLANDING, Don[ald Benson], author and illustrator, was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma Territory (later state of Oklahoma), Nov. 7, 1894, son of Hugh Ross and Ida (Kimble) Blanding. His father was a lawyer and one of the pioneer settlers in the Cherokee strip of the territory. Don Blanding attended public schools in Lawton, Oklahoma, graduating from high school there in 1912, and from 1913 to 1915 he was a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. While pursuing his art studies, he earned his way by teaching drawing and working as a theater usher. He also joined a literary group that included such emerging writers as Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson, Ben Hecht, and Maxwell Bodenheim, and during that period painted a scene set for Hecht's play, 'Publico.' On his way back to Oklahoma he saw the play, 'The Bird of Paradise,' in Kansas City, Missouri, and, entranced by its portrayal of Hawaii, he started within a week journey to that island.
    In Honolulu he worked a cartoonist for the Honolulu Advertiser, painted portraits, and produced an amateur play for the Junior League. He returned to the mainland in 1917 as a private in a U.S. Army Infantry unit. He subsequently was sent to Camp Grant, Illinois, for officer training and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant, but the Armistice was signed before he was scheduled for overseas duty. Following his discharge from the Army, he went to Europe and studied art in Paris and London in 1918. During the next several years he visited Guatemala, Honduras, and the Yucatan peninsula, and in 1921 he returned to Honolulu. While he was working as it commercial artist for an advertising firm in that city, he was given a temporary assignment as copy writer. He wrote his copy in rhyme, and for two years his daily poems appeared in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. These poems had for their subjects local people and events, and each poem made reference to Aji-No-Moto, a Japanese soup powder, Amusing and diverse, the poems were very widely read, and the executives of the newspaper suggested to Blanding that he compile them into a book. He called his first collection 'Leaves from a Grass House,' but was forced to publish it at his own expense, with some cooperation from the newspaper. The edition of 2000 copies sold out quickly, and Patten Co., Ltd., publishers of Honolulu, took over publication in 1923. A second collection, 'Paradise Loot,' appeared in 1925, and a third, 'Flowers of the Rainbow,' in 1926.
     He then selected what he considered the best of his poems and, adding some new ones and his own pen-and-ink illustrations, submitted the compilation to a New York publisher, who brought it out in 1928 under the title, 'Vagabond's House.' The book met with immediate success and by 1948 had gone into its 48th edition and sold more than 150,000 copies. After 1928 he wrote both poetry and prose, and his published works, some of them with his own illustrations, were: 'Virgin of Waikiki' (1929), 'Hula Moons' (1930), 'Songs of the Seven Senses' and 'Stowaways in Paradise' (1931), 'Let Us Dream' (1933), 'Memory Room' (1935), 'Pictures of Paradise' (1936), 'The Rest of the Road' (1937), 'Drifter's Gold' (1939), 'Floridays' (1940), 'Pilot Bails Out' (1943), 'Today Is Here' (1946), 'Mostly California' (1948), 'A Grand Time for Living'
(1950), 'Joy Is an Inside Job' (1953), and 'Hawaii Says Aloha' (1955). Additionally, he wrote travel articles for the periodical, Asia, and for travel magazines, and he contributed poetry to newspapers. During the years of his writing, Blanding traveled extensively and at different times made his home in Honolulu, in Hollywood, Carmel, and Los Angeles, California, in Taos, New Mexico, and in Florida. In 1951, while again a resident of Honolulu, he wrote a Saturday column for the Honolulu Star Bulletin entitled, 'Don Blanding Says "Aloha".' He made his final home in Los Angeles in 1955 and in that year made a lecture tour of the Midwest, and in the following year he delivered 236 lectures in all parts of the United States. He also did some radio work and was narrator for a number of travel films.
    During the Second World War he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and for eleven months served with the 1208th Service Corps Unit, Infantry, at Camp Upton, New York, being discharged in 1943 in the rank of corporal. In 1954 he received an honorary Doctorate of Literature degree from Jackson College, Hawaii. He was a member of the Author's League of America, Inc. His religious affiliation was with the Church of Religious Science, Los Angeles. He found recreation in mountain climbing and traveling.   He was married in Florida, June 13, 1940, to Dorothy Putnam.  Don Blanding died without issue in Los Angeles, California, June 9, 1957.

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