Woman of the Week

Author Flora Haines Loughead, who was born on July 12, 1855, is this week's Women of the Week.  

•  To learn about her by viewing her item, please click on her image.  

• To read her biographical sketch in A Woman of the Century, please click on the highlighted page number to the left of her image.

Author Flora Haines Loughead was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 12, 1855.  By 1870, her family had moved to West Lincoln, Illinois.  Flora graduated from Lincoln University in 1872.  She married Charles E. Apponyi in Sacramento in August of 1875.  Eleven years later, after divorcing her husband, Flora married John Loughead in San Francisco, California.  She had children with both husbands.   

Flora was the author of and a contributor to many books, including the 1898 novel The Black Curtain.  She also edited Life, Diary and Letters of Oscar Lovell Shafter, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of California, January 1, 1864, to December 31, 1868, in 1915.  In 1899, Flora accused Charles H. Hoyt of plagiarizing books she had written in the early 1890s for his play "A Contented Woman."

In addition to penning her books, Flora also wrote for newspapers and periodicals.  In 1895, she was writing for The San Francisco Call. Flora was a contributor to Household in 1903, and "When The Prince Came," her story about California, began its run as a serial in the June 1905 edition of Sunset Magazine.  By 1908, Flora was editing for The San Francisco Chronicle.

During her career, Flora became friends with Helen Hunt Jackson and many other writers.

Also very interested in libraries, she wrote The Libraries of California: Containing Descriptions of the Principal Private and Public Libraries Throughout the State in 1878,

By 1897, Flora was a member of the Woman's Parliament of Southern California.  That October, she was one of many participants at the Woman's Parliament's convention in Los Angeles.

After Florence and John's divorce, she married David A. Guitierrez, who was twelve years her junior, in November of 1908. 

During the 1930s, Flora lived at 1871 Park Drive in Los Angeles.  She later moved to Alameda, where she passed away on January 27, 1943. She was buried in Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California.