Ethel Hueston

Born in Iowa in 1887, Ethel Hueston became an American novelist whose work was especially popular with younger readers and families. She studied at Iowa Wesleyan College, and her writing drew on the rhythms of Midwestern life, often mixing humor with a gentle eye for domestic chaos.

She is most closely associated with Prudence of the Parsonage (1915) and its sequels, stories centered on a minister's family that helped make her name. Across a long career, she published more than 40 books, building a reputation for light, engaging novels filled with spirited characters and everyday comedy.

Hueston died in 1971. Though she is less widely known today than she once was, many of her books remain accessible through library and public-domain collections, and her cheerful, fast-moving storytelling still gives a good sense of early 20th-century popular fiction.