Susannah Valentine Aldrich

Susannah Valentine Aldrich was born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, November 14, 1828. She was the only child of Willard and Lucy (Morse) Aldrich. As a child, she showed fondness for writing her thoughts. In her schooldays, she found it far easier to write compositions than to commit lessons to memory, and she was generally permitted to choose her own subjects for the regular "composition day" in school. Her studies were interrupted by a severe illness which lasted for several years.

The Rev. John Calvin Webster, her pastor, also one of the directors of the academy which Aldrich attended, was struck with the merit and quality of her compositions, and selected some of them to offer to a magazine for publication. These were accepted. For many years, Aldrich contributed both prose and poetry to a number of papers and magazines. She was a victim to insomnia, and she always kept paper and pencil within reach in order to jot down her ideas during periods of wakefulness. After her health became impaired, she confined her literary work to various occasions. From 1879, she made her home in the Roxbury District of Boston.

She died in Boston, November 30, 1905 and is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Hopkinton.