Ruth Gaines

Ruth Louise Gaines was an American writer born in 1877 and remembered for books including A Village in Picardy, Helping France: The Red Cross in the Devastated Area, and Ladies of Grécourt: The Smith College Relief Unit in the Somme. Her work often grew out of direct experience in France during and just after the First World War, where she wrote about devastated villages, relief efforts, and the people rebuilding daily life.

She also wrote fiction for younger readers, including Lucita: A Child's Story of Old Mexico, Treasure Flower, and The Village Shield, the last written with Georgia Willis Read. Later, Gaines and Read also collaborated as editors on Gold Rush: The Journals, Drawings, and Other Papers of J. Goldsborough Bruff, showing the wide range of her interests beyond wartime writing.

Read’s biographical record notes that the two women lived together for many years and worked on shared literary projects, and that Gaines died in 1952. I wasn’t able to confirm a reliable portrait image of her from the sources I found, so none is included here.