Mrs. Frank Lee (née Mary Chappell Skeel)
BiographyMrs. Frank Lee, probably the greatest novelist the average reader never heard of, was born Mary Chappell Skeel in Kingston, Ulster County, New York, in 1849; graduated from Miss Bulkley’s Seminary for Young Ladies in Tarrytown—which explains the religious influence on her stories; taught school for at least a decade, starting with seven years for New York City schools; married Frank Lee on March 22, 1880, at Central College of Ohio (a Presbyterian college); and one final tidbit of trivia: she was strongly in favor of, and campaigned for, women’s suffrage and prohibition, two causes closely linked and promoted by many of the same people at the time.
Her date of death is not known, nor do we have information about any children.
As the first paragraph mentions, Mrs. Lee was a New York City schoolteacher for seven years and her personal experience in that position was used to form the setting for Redmond of the Seventh. Indeed, at the end of Chapter XVIII. the author lets slip a clue that suggests this story is not entirely fictional, that Redmond was in fact a real boy, and Redmond’s teacher, Miss Allen, was based upon Mrs. Frank Lee herself.
Bibliography
Little Boom Number One (??)
Mart Connor (??)
The Losing Side (temperance movement pamphlet, 1888)
Knives and Forks (?, 1890)
Garret Grain; or, The House Blessed (novel, 1894)
Redmond of the Seventh; or, The Boys of Ninety (novel, 1897)
Professor Pin (novel, 1899)
The Defense of Redleysburg (novelette, 1905)
A Boy and a Box (novel, 1909)
“The Revolving Churn” (story in Grit, January 23, 1910)
“A Pioneer Mother” (story in The Youth’s Companion, December 22, 1910)
The Making of Major (novel, 1913)