 1863 - 1924 (61 years)
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| Name |
Geneva Grace Stratton |
| Birth |
17 Aug 1863 |
Near Wabash, Indiana  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Death |
6 Dec 1924 |
Los Angeles, CA |
| Person ID |
I57894 |
Cecilie Family |
| Last Modified |
23 Mar 2003 |
| Family |
Charles Dorwin Porter, b. 3 Apr 1850, Decatur, Adams Co., Indiana d. 15 Dec 1926, Ft. Wayne, Allen Co., Indiana (Age 76 years) |
| Marriage |
21 Apr 1886 |
| Children |
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| Family ID |
F24410 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Last Modified |
22 Feb 2009 |
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| Notes |
Gene Stratton-Porter
1863-1924
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is better known as Gene Stratton-Porter, the well-know author of such famous books as "Freckles", "Girl of the Limberlost", "Song of the Cardinal", "Laddie", and "The Harvester", to mention just a few.
Her parents were avid nature enthusiasts who passed along a love of the unspoiled outdoors to their daughter-a love she kept close to her throughout her life as a respected author, naturalist, photographer and illustrator.
In 1886, Gene married Charles Dorwin Porter, a pharmacist and banker. The couple lived for a short time in Decatur. After the birth of their daughter, Jeannette, they built a home in Geneva, Indiana near the Limberlost Swamp in 1895. The Porters lived in this home until the swamp was drained in 1913. Architects describe the home, which Stratton-Porter designed, as a 14-room Queen Anne, rustic log cabin. The interior is finished in both Victorian and Arts and Crafts style.
At that time, they moved to a new home in a beautiful wooded area on the shores of Sylvan Lake near Rome City. It is also a state historic site called the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site.
During World War I Gene Stratton-Porter moved to California. She wrote editorials for McCall's magazine and founded, in 1922, the Stratton Porter film company to produce movies of her books. She also began building homes in Bel Air and on Catalina Island. Gene Stratton-Porter died on December 6, 1924, in Los Angeles, from injuries following a traffic accident - her limousine was hit by a trolley car.
| Author's remains coming home |
ROME CITY -- When Gene Stratton Porter was killed in a car accident in California in 1924, her husband had her body put in a mausoleum. He hoped to bring her back for burial in Indiana later. But her husband, Charles Porter, died within two years, before he was able to move her body from that temporary entombment.
Nearly 75 years after her death, the Hoosier author and naturalist born as Geneva Stratton, is finally coming home to her beloved Sylvan Lake near Rome City. She is returning to the area known as the Limberlost, which was the setting for many of her books.
Mrs. Porter, hailed in her time as one of Indiana's top authors and a respected nature photographer, died at the age of 61 in collision between an automobile and a streetcar in Hollywood, Calif. Although she had wished to be buried near her home overlooking northeastern Indiana's Sylvan Lake, she was entombed in Hollywood Cemetery, where her daughter, Jeannette Porter Meehan, was buried after her 1977 death. Mrs. Porter's grandchildren eventually decided to move both bodies to Indiana, but had to overcome numerous legal roadblocks.
The final step in that quest came recently when an Indiana Department of Natural Resources commission approved the entombment of the bodies at the Gene Stratton Porter State Historic Site in Rome City. Surrounded by gardens and woods, the site includes the lakeside residence where Mrs. Porter once lived. The mother and daughter will be buried in a private family service before the end of April.
South Bend Tribune -- March 27, 1999 -- By LINDA MULLEN - Tribune Staff Writer |
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| For more information see the Our Folk - Hart family Web Site |
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