Alice Geer Kelsey

Alice Geer was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, and grew up in Lewiston, Maine, and West Hartford, Connecticut.

In 1919, she married Lincoln David Kelsey and immediately thereafter left on the second boat taking relief workers to the Near East after World War I.

When World War II called them again for relief work, Mrs. Kelsey served with UNRRA in Athens, while her husband's skill was again helpful in revitalizing the agricultural infrastructure across Europe.

A long sojourn studying social problems in Puerto Rico followed, and this gave Mrs. Kelsey the material for Ricardo's White Horse.

Mrs. Kelsey is the sister of classicist Russel M. Geer, who, in 1955, famously resigned in protest as Tulane University's associate dean of arts and sciences over what he perceived as undue academic favoritism to two football players.