Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American children's author and educator. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878. A few years later she and her sister opened a training school for kindergarten teachers. Her best known books are The Story of Pasty (1883), The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887), Polly Oliver's Problem (1893), A Cathedral Courtship (1893), The Village Watchtoer (1896), Marm Lisa (1897) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903). The three stories in this collection all take place in an imaginary village in York County, Maine. In Rose of the River the river is the central character. The Old Peabody Pew has some historical validity. There is a Dorcas Society, and there is a meeting house. The Dorcas Society did scrub the pews when there was no money for paint. Susanna and Sue was written from the author's memories of her attended Shaker services as a child.