Ruth Suckow

Championed by H. L. Mencken and befriended by Robert Frost, Ruth Suckow (1892-1960) was a daughter of Iowa who wrote about its towns and their people throughout her celebrated literary career. Descended from German immigrants, she was born in newly settled Hawarden; her father was a Congregational minister whose work took the family to various rural communities, some little removed from life on the frontier. Suckow later wrote about her own spiritual awakening, and The John Wood Case (her final novel) brilliantly explores what happens when worldly transgression occurs in a religious context. Much praised in her prime, by the end of her life she had published nine novels and 43 short stories. She is buried in Cedar Falls, Iowa.