Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

Born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1870 and raised in Louisville, she became one of the most popular American writers of her day. She is most closely associated with Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1901), the novel that made her famous and was later adapted for the stage and film.

Her writing grew out of real experience. As a Sunday school teacher and volunteer worker in a poor Louisville neighborhood known as the Cabbage Patch, she met families whose struggles and resilience shaped her best-known fiction. That firsthand knowledge helped give her books their mix of tenderness, comedy, and social feeling.

She went on to write many more novels and stories, and she remained an important literary figure in Kentucky for decades. She died in Louisville in 1942, but her best-loved work still stands out for its lively characters, generous spirit, and deep affection for the people at the center of her stories.