Rosemary

12 March 1889 – 22 February 1978

Josephine Lawrence was born in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of a doctor and a retiring mother. As a child, she spent considerable time with a Quaker aunt who spoke the plain language and saw to it that she attended First Day Sabbath regularly. When one of her articles for the school newspaper won a $5 prize, she "resolved then and there to become an author." When she was in her teens, her family moved to Hopewell, where her father took up farming. Although she had planned to attend college, she was unable to master high school math, and decided instead to become a writer. She wrote stories for children's magazines, and articles for a farm journal. In 1915, she became editor of the childr…