From the Valley of the Missing

Grace Miller White (1868–1957) was an American author. Born Mary Esther Miller, she lived her whole life in Ithaca, New York. She adopted the name Grace around 1897, in memory of a younger sister who had died before reaching her first birthday. She married twice, first to Homer White, and then to Friend H. Miller. She began her writing career novelizing plays, before turning her hand to novels in 1909. Several of her books were adapted for the big screen, most notably Tess of the Storm Country, which has been filmed on four separate occasions between 1914 and 1960. As a child, Grace Miller White was lame and walked with crutches, so she could not be sent to school. Although she was later cured, she was married at the age of 15 and never had any regular schooling. By the age of 23, she had given birth to five children. At 23, she became a widow in Butte, Montana, with four children. Although one of her children was blind and died later, she brought up her three other children and eventually sent her oldest child through college. Although White first began her writing career novelizing plays, she eventually began working on novels and wrote her first big seller, Tess of the Storm Country in 1909.