E. E. Brown

Emma Elizabeth Brown (October 18, 1847 – March 24, 1937), pen names B. E. E. and E. E. Brown, was an American author of prose, biographies, and poetry. She wrote for literary and religious magazines. Brown was also an artist. She exhibited watercolors in 1892.

Early life and education

Emma Elizabeth Brown was born in Concord, New Hampshire, October 18, 1847. She was the daughter of John Frost and Elizabeth (Evans) Brown. Her father had no sons, his brother Henry never married, and, her grandfather Brown having been an only son, Emma was the last of her line to bear the family name. As stated by the late Henry Brown, who was a genealogist, this family of Brown in New England was of German origin, and the early spelling of the name was Braun.

Through her paternal grandmother, Susannah Frost Brown, Emma traced her descent from Edmund Frost, Ruling Elder of the church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elder Frost, said to have been son of John Frost, of Ipswich, England, came over in the ship Great Hope in 1635, and was made freeman at Cambridge, March 3, 1630. He died in July 1672. In his will, which was probated in October following, he left bequests to his widow Reana (his second wife), each of his eight children, something to the new college (Harvard) then building at Cambridge, and to George Alcock, a student.

Emma's father, John Frost Brown, for many years a bookseller in Concord, was an ardent lover of beauty, whether in nature or art. During her girlhood, as she took long outdoor tramps with him, he taught her to note the changing beauties of sky and land and sea, which in later years she was skilful in reproducing on canvas. During his busy life, he collected a large library of valuable books. He was a great reader himself, and he directed her reading, which dwelt mostly on outdoor themes and stories of golden deeds in ancient and modern history. This reading bore fruit in the many interesting volumes to which Emma's name was attached. Her mother, Elizabeth Evans, was also of English descent, but her family record shows more practical business men than scholars. She herself had great executive ability and an energetic temperament. Her parents were Artemas and Margaret (Sargent) Evans. The latter, Emma's grandmother, lived to be more than a hundred years old, and when she was ninety-two had four sisters living who were over ninety. Only two of the five, however, reached the century mark, and none of the later generation showed any striking longevity.