Mothers to Men: it is the mother heart of the women of Friendship Village that Miss Gale reveals here in all its warmth and goodness. Mis' Toplady, Mis' Emmons, Mis' Holcomb and others of the "Friendship married ladies cemetery improvement sodality" disagree spiritedly when it is proposed to divert the sum of sixty hard earned dollars from the cherished object of a central monument for the cemetery that would show from the railroad track and put it to use in educating a stray boy who is deserted by his father and left on their church steps. This little lad who wished first to become a poet and then president of the United States helps to show these kindly souls just where their hearts are located and comfortably enjoys the serenity that follows the discovery (Book Review Digest, 1911).
Zona Gale (August 26, 1874 December 27, 1938) was an American author and playwright. Gale was born in Portage, Wisconsin, which she often used as a setting in her writing. She attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and later entered the University of WisconsinMadison, from which she received a Bachelor of Literature degree in 1895, and four years later a master's degree.
After college, Gale wrote for newspapers in Milwaukee and New York City, for six years. A visit to Portage in 1903 proved a turning point in her literary life, as seeing the sights and sounds of town life led her to comment that her 'old world was full of new possibilities.' Gale had found the material she needed for her writing, and returned to Portage in 1904 to concentrate full time on fiction. She wrote and published there until her 1938 death, but made trips to New York
In 1928 at the age of fifty-four she married William L. Breese, also of Portage.
Gale died of pneumonia in a Chicago hospital in 1938.