Frances V. Rummell

Frances V. Rummell (November 14, 1907 - May 11, 1969) was an educator and columnist who is known posthumously as the author and publisher of the first explicitly lesbian autobiography in the United States in which two women end up happily together.

Her father, Lander, owned a clothing store[2] until he committed suicide in 1918, when Frances was only ten years old.

[3] In 1917, Rummell moved to Columbia, Missouri with her grandmother, mother, older brother, and younger sister.

Her master's thesis was "The status of women in the plays of Molière.”[6][7] After college, Rummell traveled to Paris to study at the Sorbonne in 1931.

Supposedly, on her return she smuggled a copy of Ulysses into the U.S.[8][9] Rummell taught French[10] at Stephens College in the 1930s.

[14] However, Rummell's niece Jo Markwyn said in an interview that she believes Diana: A Strange Autobiography is not purely autobiographical: "The general family background is similar, but rather than having three brothers, she had two brothers and a younger sister...I don’t think it’s an autobiography.

[15] Rummell gave up teaching in 1940 and moved to Beverly Hills, California to work as a non-fiction education writer, using her own name.

[16][19][20] In 1960, Rummell published an illustrated novel, Aunt Jane McPhipps And Her Baby Blue Chips, written under her own name.