Frances Parkinson Keyes
He was a banker who became a Republican politician and served one term as Governor of New Hampshire (1917-1919) before his election to the United States Senate (1919-1937).
It endorsed the idea that women who had lost a loved one in the war should wear a gold star as a symbol of their sacrifice.
Greater success was achieved with the publication of her article "Satisfied Reflections of a Semi-Bostonian" in the Atlantic Monthly in December 1918.
After moving to Washington, D.C., Keyes wrote a series of articles for Good Housekeeping magazine titled "Letters from a Senator's Wife."
Her novels are set in New England, Virginia, Louisiana, Normandy, and South America, reflecting her upbringing and extensive travels.
Many of Keyes' books are set in south Louisiana, and she eloquently described societal life and conventions in her historical novels.
Keyes' novel Blue Camellia tells about the development of areas in south Louisiana from swampland to productive rice farms.
She went to great lengths to research her subject matter and ensure the historical, geographical, linguistic and even scientific accuracy of her writings.
The meticulousness of her detailed accounts make her novels valuable tools for learning about a time long past and customs that have died away.
As her world expanded from that of an educated New Englander to an increasingly sophisticated political wife and international traveler, so did her interest in the Catholic religion.
In the introduction to "Tongues of Fire," her book about Christian missionaries fueled by the Holy Spirit, she humorously notes that it may have been during the hour-long sermons of the Congregationalist church that she "took her first steps toward Catholicism."
[14] The first of Keyes' novels set in Louisiana was Crescent Carnival, which tells the story of three generations of two intertwined families.
The Breckenridges are Protestants, while the Fontaines are Catholic Louisiana Creoles, and the plot hinges on the way that pride and misfortune conspire with cultural and political differences to keep prospective lovers from marrying.
The plantation home which inspired this novel is still in existence; it is called "San Francisco", with mid-Victorian architecture reminiscent of a steamboat.
Blue Camellia is set in the prairie country of South Louisiana and takes place on a rice farm.
A subplot involving diplomatic and political manipulation made use of Keyes' experiences in Washington, D.C., as a Senator's wife.
A slightly ribald anecdote about a panicked Creole bride on her wedding night is told in The River Road and is mentioned in Once on Esplanade, Madame Castel's Lodger, The Chess Players and others.
The reader has the sense of a single, unified narrative world underlying the entire Louisiana set of novels.
Her Louisiana novels contained lengthy forewords or postscripts detailing her background research (including bibliographies) and listing the many people who provided her with information and/or inspiration.
Now known as the Beauregard-Keyes House and Garden, the museum contains extensive Keyes correspondences, as well as her collections of dolls, fans, adult-sized costumes collected on her world travels and rare porcelain veilleuses, a kind of teapot in which the contents—anything from tea to milk—are kept warm by a small votive light.
The Beauregard-Keyes house appeared none the worse for wear after Hurricane Katrina, but the structure suffered roof damage.
