Bess Streeter Aldrich

Bess Streeter Aldrich (February 17, 1881 – August 3, 1954) was an American author. 2Life and career Bess Genevra Streeter was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa. She was the last of the eight children of James Wareham and Mary Wilson Anderson Streeter. After graduating from Iowa State Normal School, she taught school at several locations in the west, later returning to Cedar Falls to earn an advanced degree in education. A writer since early childhood, she won a writing contest at age fourteen and another at seventeen. In 1907, she married Charles Sweetzer Aldrich, who had graduated with a law degree from Iowa State University and had been one of the youngest captains in the Spanish-American War. Following the war, he served for years as a U.S. Commissioner in Alaska. They had four children—Mary, Robert, Charles and James. In 1909, they moved with their children and Bess's widowed mother to Elmwood, Nebraska, where Charles, Bess, and Bess's sister and brother-in-law Clara and John Cobb purchased the American Exchange Bank. Elmwood became the location for many of her stories, albeit called by different name