Gene Stratton Porter
Even by Hollywood standards it might be considered over the top. Gene Stratton Porter, a young girl from the small town of Wabash, Indiana is injured in a fall and while recuperating, visits a Chautauqua in northwest Indiana where she meets an older man who is a successful pharmacist.
Marrying him, the two discover oil on their property, becoming even wealthier. Then this woman, who never finished high school, begins writing books. The second one becomes a best seller and within a whirlwind 22 years, she goes on to write 10 more novels, many of which are made into movies.
She travels from Rome City, Indiana where she, her husband and daughter lived, to Hollywood, starting a film company to produce movies of her books. Beginning to build homes in the snazzy enclave of Bel Air and on lush Catalina Island, she is killed when her limousine is hit by a trolley car in 1924.
Porter is almost forgotten now, but at the beginning of the 1900s she was one of the most popular novelists in the country and is considered Indiana’s most famous female writer.
An avid naturalist, the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site in Rome City, Indiana is open to the public and includes tours of her home and extensive gardens.