Like Frank Miller, Zona Gale was a native of Wisconsin. Unlike Miller, she continued to return to live in her home state. Her mother, Eliza Beers Gale, wrote in her journal:
âĶA Darling Blessed daughter â Little Zona, to gladden our hearts and make our home O so bright with her glad voice and sweet smiles. Yes, we have a daughter, born on the 26th of August 1874, and O how we love her, how good that God should send us such a treasure. (Derleth, Still Small Voice, page 3).
Born in 1862 to Charles and Eliza Gale in Portage, Wisconsin, a small village at the confluence of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, Gale returned repeatedly to her roots. As one biographer wrote: “The two words: ‘Portage, Wisconsin’ signified life to Zona Gale. There she was born, and there she was secured by ties of home and parents. These two words, written by her thousands of times, became charged, she said, in a way unknown to the casual visitor.”
She used the setting of her home village, Portage, in her writings…