Three classic Christas stories: The Birds Christmas Carol, The Romance of a Christmas Card, and The Old Peabody Pew. According to Wikiipedia: Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856–August 24, 1923) was an American childrens author and educator. Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin was born in Philadelphia, and was of Welsh descent. A graduate of Abbot Academy, Class of 1873, she started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister in the 1880s she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers... Still devoted to her school, she began to raise money for it through writing, first The Story of Patsy (1883), then The Birds Christmas Carol (1887). Both privately printed books were issued commercially by Houghton Mifflin in 1889, with enormous success. Ironically, considering her intense love of children, Kate Wiggin had none. Her husband died suddenly in 1889, and Kate took her grief home to Maine. For the rest of her life she struggled with depression, and in order to combat it she traveled as frequently as she could, dividing her time between writing, trips to Europe, and giving public reading for the benefit of various childrens charities. Her literary output included popular books for adults, scholarly work on the educational principles of Friedrich Froebel, and of course the classic childrens novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903) Wiggins home in the Salmon Falls section of Hollis, Maine.