Born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on February 17, 1881, Bess Streeter graduated from Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) in 1901 and then taught school for five years, the last in Salt Lake City, Utah. In September 1907 she married Charles S. Aldrich, a banker and lawyer with whom she lived in Tipton, Iowa, and later in Elmwood, Nebraska. From an early age she had been interested in writing, and at the age of fourteen she had sold a story to the Chicago Record. She continued to publish occasionally, until 1918 generally under the pen name ╥Margaret Dean Stevens.╙
In 1924 she issued her first book, a collection of short stories under the title Mother Mason. Her first novel, The Rim of the Prairie, appeared in 1925, the year of her husband╒s death. Thereafter her output sharply increased. For her themes and characters she drew on the life of the Plains settlers of the nineteenth century, including her own forbears. Her depictions of that life were realistic and vivid, while her plots tended to the simple and sentimental. Her more than 160 short stories appeared in such leading magazines as Woman╒s Home Companion, Saturday Evening Post, Century, Collier╒s, McCall╒s, and Harper╒s Weekly; some were collected in The Man Who Caught the Weather, 1936, the title story of which won an O. Henry Prize, Journey into Christmas, 1949, and The Bess Streeter Aldrich Reader, 1950. Her novels included The Cutters, 1926; A Lantern in Her Hand, which enjoyed great success in America and in numerous translations abroad, 1928; A White Bird Flying, third on the best-seller list for 1931; Miss Bishop, also a best seller and later made into a successful motion picture, 1933; Spring Came On Forever, 1935; Song of Years, 1939; The Drum Goes Dead, 1941; and The Lieutenant╒s Lady, 1942. She died in Lincoln, Nebraska, on August 3, 1954.
