Farmer, Fannie Merritt, 1857-1915

Fannie Farmer was born on 23 March 1857 in Boston, Massachusetts. She was expected to go to college, but suffered a paralytic stroke at the age of 16 while attending Medford High School. For the next several years she was unable to walk and remained in her parents' care at home. During this time Farmer took up cooking, eventually developing a reputation for the quality of the meals her mother's boarding house served.

At the age of 30 she enrolled in the Boston Cooking School. In 1891, she took the position of school principal. Fannie published her best-known work, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, in 1896. Farmer died in 1915 at age 57 of complications due to a stroke.