Eleanor Emily (Hodgman) Porter (1868 - 1920)

Born 19 Dec 1868 in Littleton, Grafton, New Hampshire, United States

Ancestors

Died 21 May 1920 at age 51 in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Eleanor (Hodgman) Porter is Notable.

Eleanor was an American novelist. The daughter of Llewella French (née Woolson) and Francis Fletcher Hodgman, she was trained as a singer, attending New England Conservatory for several years. In 1892, she married John Lyman Porter on 3 May 1892 and relocated to Massachusetts, after which she began writing and publishing her short stories and later novels.

Beginning with her first novel, Cross Currents (1907), Porter was popular with readers, who loved her sentimental tales of orphaned heiresses and lost little girls. But her novel Pollyanna (1913), about a young girl who looks for the good in even the most dire hardships, eclipsed them all, spending two years on the best-sellers list and ultimately leading to a play, a movie, a calendar, and a daily almanac of reasons to be glad. Within a decade, the word “Pollyanna” entered the American lexicon, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “an excessively or blindly optimistic person” and one who is cheerful to a fault.

Eleanor Emily Hodgman was born in Littleton, New Hampshire on December 21, 1868. She was the daughter of Francis Hodgman and Lewella Woolson

Eleanor was the author of "Pollyanna" books, along with many others.

She married John Lyman Porter (1864–1956) on May 3, 1892.

She passed away in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 21, 1920.

Burial

Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA.

Inscription

Who by her writings brought sunshine into the lives of millions

Sources

• Wikipedia article
• The Literature Network
• "Ancestry of Gov. Bill Richardson" compiled by William Addams Reitwiesner
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6687908
• Littleton, New Hampshire city website article about Pollyanna author
• New Hampshire's history blog post about Eleanor Porter

Massachusetts State Vital Records, 1841-1920

John "J-Cat" Griffith