Holmes, Mary Jane: Miss McDonald. V1. 4 July 2010
 

Mary Jane Hawes was born in Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1825. At age 13 she taught in a school. She married Daniel Holmes and they settled in Versailles, Kentucky. In 1854 she wrote her first novel, Tempest and Sunshine. The theme for most of her novels was domestic life. She died in 1907, at the age of 82, in Brockport, New York.

Excerpt
EXTRACTS FROM MISS FRANCES THORNTON'S JOURNAL
ELMWOOD, June 15, 18—.
I have been out among my flowers all the morning, digging, weeding, and transplanting, and then stopping a little to rest. Such perfect successes as my roses are this year, while my white lilies are the wonder of the town, and yet my heart was not with them to-day, and it was nothing to me that those fine people staying at the Towers came into the grounds while I was at work, "just to see and admire," they said, adding that there was no place like Elmwood in all the town of Cuylerville. I know that, and Guy and I have been so happy here, and I loved him so much, and never dreamed what was in store for me until it came so suddenly and seemed like a heavy blow.