1850–1921

Introduction

illustration

Born: Feb­ru­ary 15, 1850, New Or­leans, Lou­isi­ana.

Buried: Wood­lands Ce­me­te­ry, Penn­syl­van­ia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Biography

Emma was the daugh­ter of John C. Church­man and Lyd­ia Starr.

When she was three years old, the fa­mi­ly moved to a farm in Rah­way, New Jer­sey, lat­er to Bur­ling­ton, New Jer­sey, then to Cam­den. She lived there ma­ny years, mov­ing to West Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia, in the late 19th Cen­tu­ry.

She was a flu­ent French schol­ar, and had a know­ledge of sev­er­al oth­er lang­uag­es. She be­gan writ­ing short sto­ries at such an ear­ly age that it was said she was born with a pen in her hand.

In 1884, she be­came a jour­nal­ist, and worked for the Burl­ing­ton, New Jer­sey, Dai­ly Ev­en­ing Re­por­ter for some time. In 1885, at the re­quest of the pub­lish­er of the La­dies’ Home Jour­nal, she be­gan a ser­ies of ar­ti­cles ti­tled Scrib­bler’s Let­ters to Gus­tav­us Adolph­us.

The next year she be­came as­so­ci­ate ed­it­or of the jour­nal, serv­ing there four years. She re­gu­lar­ly con­trib­ut­ed sketch­es, short stor­ies and ar­ti­cles on do­mes­tic top­ics to at least a doz­en oth­er pe­ri­od­ic­als, as well.

Around 1895, she left the La­dies’ Home Jour­nal and be­came as­so­ci­at­ed with the Home Ma­ga­zine in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and, af­ter the death of her sis­ter, with the month­ly Lei­sure Hours in Phi­la­del­phia.

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