Ruth Gaines

Ruth Louise Gaines was an American author born in 1877 and died in 1952. Reliable library and reference records connect her with a substantial body of prose writing, including Lucita: A Child's Story of Old Mexico, Treasure Flower: A Child of Japan, A Village in Picardy, and Ladies of Grécourt.

Sources available here also indicate that she graduated from Smith College in 1901 and later wrote about the Smith College Relief Unit in the Somme during World War I. That background helps explain the mix in her books: some are imaginative stories for younger readers, while others draw on travel, history, and wartime service.

Taken together, her work suggests a writer interested in places, people, and everyday life under extraordinary circumstances. Even in brief records, she stands out as an author who brought distant settings and real events within easy reach of general readers.