ABSTRACT
The elder of the two children of Warren and Eleanor Lothrop Wilkins, Mary Ella (Eleanor) Wilkins was born in Randolph, Massachusetts, on October 31, 1852. Her father, a housepainter, had financial difficulties and the family moved to Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1867. In reduced financial condition, the family had to live in a home where the mother served as housekeeper; but her death, in 1880, caused even more troubles for the family, and the death of Anna, Mary's younger sister, in 1876, was a blow to the family. Her life was largely uneventful, a record of hard work and frequent publication. In 1892 she met Dr. Charles Freeman, of Metuchen, New Jersey. They were married in 1902, when she was nearly fifty. Honors came in her later years: in 1926, she was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal and was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. On March 15, 1930, she died at the age of seventy-seven.
