Born in Chicago, she worked at the Hull House[1] before relocating to Reading, Pennsylvania after her marriage.
[2] Her first novel, One Red Rose Forever, which was based on the history of Lancaster County, was rejected by twenty-two publishers before finally appearing in 1941.
While a 1954 review of her play The Wonderful Cornelia referred to her as "one of the nation's best-known novelists",[5] John Updike expressed a more ambivalent view of her talents several years later, dismissing her in a sentence as "an unmeetably rich industrialist's wife".
[6] In addition to her own writing, Jordan also served as the editor of the Berks County Historical Magazine.
[7] Jordan was represented by the literary agent Annie Laurie Williams,[5] whose other clients included Margaret Mitchell, John Steinbeck, and Truman Capote.