Ann Barry (1) (–1996)

Ann Barry was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from St. Louis University. She became an editor at The New York Times and then began contributing articles to the paper. In 1990, she became managing editor of the "Goings On About Town" section of The New Yorker. She fell in love with a charming house in the town of Carennac in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. Although she knew she could spend only two or three weeks each year there, she loved it so much that she wrote a book about it, At Home in France: Tales of an American and Her House Abroad. It was published posthumously after she died of cancer at age 53 in 1996.