As the holiday of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May, 34-year old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, a father of a four-year old girl, was exhausted, broke, and about to lose his wife to cancer.
One night, Barbara, his daughter aked him, “Why isn’t mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team.
Read the rest of the story here: The Inspiring Story Behind the Song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer