Helen Hooven Santmyer was born in 1895 and lived in Xenia, Ohio. In addition to her career as a writer, she worked as an English professor, a dean of women, and a librarian. She was 87 when her novel "And Ladies of the Club" was published as a Book of the Month, and passed away at the age of 90 in February of 1986. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1996