[1][5][6] The Roche family moved frequently throughout Southern Ontario during her childhood because of her mother's ill health and her father's work as a travelling salesman.

[7][4] She was a lonely child who became an avid reader and developed her own fictional world, "The Play," in which she created imaginary scenes and characters.

When de la Roche was seven, her parents adopted her orphaned eight-year-old cousin Caroline Clement, who joined in Mazo's fantasy world game and would become her lifelong companion.

[7] De la Roche, then 23, had her first story published in 1902 in Munsey's Magazine, but very shortly thereafter (in February 1903) she suffered a mental breakdown.

De la Roche continued to write, but at this juncture Caroline Clement was the main breadwinner of the household, working as a civil service clerk.

During the summers, Clement lived in a Toronto boarding house while de la Roche and her mother would stay in a cottage near Lake Simcoe, several hours north of the city.

de la Roche's family endured the illness of her mother, the perpetual job searches of her father, and the adoption of her orphaned cousin while being moved 17 times.

The sudden bout of fame was not an immediate blessing for de la Roche, as the stress of the attendant publicity caused her to experience another breakdown in early 1928.

The income from Jalna and its sequels allowed de la Roche to become the main breadwinner of the household, after years of having been supported by Clement.

[14] This was extremely unusual for the time, as adoptions by single women were technically not allowed in the UK during this era; the machinations by which de la Roche and Clement were able to do this are unknown.

[5] Originally built in 1922, de la Roche lived in the home until 1945 when she and her family relocated to Forest Hill where it was easier to secure staff and get the children to and from school.

Overall, de la Roche and Caroline Clement lived a fairly reclusive life, and their relationship was not discussed widely in the press.

Not long after de la Roche's death in 1961, in accordance with her wishes, Clement burned almost all of the author's personal diaries.

Most recently, de la Roche was the subject of a Red Queen Productions and National Film Board of Canada co-production, The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche, which premiered on March 17, 2012 at the Festival international du film sur l'art in Montreal, then had its Toronto premiere at Hot Docs, April 29, 2012.

The film is directed by Maya Gallus, produced by Justine Pimlott and Anita Lee, and combines archival material with dramatic reenactments featuring Severn Thompson as Mazo de la Roche.

This century-old Georgian revival home which is situated in Clarkson, Ontario, is believed to be the inspiration for Jalna, hence the reason for the name of this subdivision when the original large Benares estate was severed and sold off to residential developers in the late 1960s.