Margaret Prescott Montague (1878–1955)

Margaret Prescott (or Preston) Montague was born at Oakhurst, a homestead in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to a family from New England. She received her early education from her parents, and in her middle teens, went to a boarding school in Richmond, Virginia. She began writing short stories, poetry, essays, and novels, sometimes using the pen name Jane Steger. Some of her writings were inspired by the mountain people of West Virginia. Her work appeared in periodicals such as Harper's Magazine. From 1909, she was affected by illnesses that left her partially blind and deaf for the rest of her life. She wrote a series of wartime stories during World War I, and won the first O. Henry Memorial Prize in 1919 for "England to America," which became an American classic. Some of her novels were adapted into films: Linda (1929), Calvert's Valley (1922), Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge (1920), and Seeds of Vengeance (1920), from The Sowing of Alderson Cree.