Bessie Rayner Parkes Belloc (1829-1925) was a poet, feminist, activist and journalist. She was a central figure in the early years of the women's rights movement in England, founding The English Woman's Journal and advocating for education and employment opportunities for women. She played a critical role in the passage of the Married Women's Property Bill in 1857, which secured property rights for widowed women.

Parkes converted to Catholicism in 1864 after being brought up a Unitarian. In 1867, she met and married Louis Belloc, a French barrister and semi-invalid. The two were married for five years and had two children, Marie Adelaide (later Mrs. Frederic Lowndes) and Joseph Hilaire Pierre (known as Hilaire Belloc). Louis Belloc died in 1872 after extended periods of ill-health and Bessie moved from the family's home in France to London with her two children. Both of Bessie's children would go on to become prolific writers.

Source:

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 240: Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century British Women Poets. Edited by William B.Thesing. The Gale Group, 2001. pp. 183-190. (Accessed July 11, 2007).

Jeanette Garr Washburn Kelsey (b. 1850) was born in Wisconsin. Her father, Cadwallader Washburn, was a civil war general and served as the governor of the state. In 1869, she married Albert Warren Kelsey (1840-1921), an industrialist, and the couple made their home in Chestnut Hill, PA, from the late 1870's through the 1920's. The couple had nine children. In 1915, she published the fictional work, Clouded Amber, under the pseudonym, Patience Warren. Art historians have speculated that she was the model for Winslow Homer's painting,The Red Feather.

Sources: Lucretia H. Giese,"Winslow Homer's Civil War Painting The Initials: A Little-Known Drawing and Related Works." American Art Journal: Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 5. [Accessed online at JSTOR doi:10.2307/1594439 on 16 July 2007]

The History of Keystone House [Accessed online at https://www.keystonecare.com/about-keystonecare/].