When Kate McPhelim Cleary died at age forty-one in 1905, she had been publishing poems, stories, articles, and novels for twenty-seven years. Forced to publish by economic necessity at age fourteen when she sold her first short story, Cleary 's writings throughout her life helped support her loved ones. She wrote literally hundreds of works for newspapers, especially the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News, and prestigious periodicals such as McClure's, Belford's Monthly, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Puck, St. Nicholas, and Youth's Companion. During her lifetime she was well known in the Midwest, especially in the Chicago area, as a humorist and a writer of realistic, sometimes naturalistic, stories about the settlement period of the West. Her best works appeared between 1895 and 1899, years of extreme stress, both financial and emotional, in her life.

Born 22 August 1863 in Richibucto, New Brunswic k, Kate McPhelim lived her early years in comfort. After...