Seymour, Mary Alice

Mary Alice (Ives) Seymour, American novelist known under the pseudonym Octavia Hensel, the author of Life and Letters of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1870), Imperia (1892), The Rhinegold Trilogy, Holly Cross, the Cedar Grove series, articles for the Ladies' Home Journal, and popular songs such as "Captive to thy Kiss," and "Bo-Peep." She was born in 1837 or 1840 (in the commonplace book, she listed Oct. 21, 1861 as her twenty-first birthday), into the family of George Russell Ives, an Episcopalian minister, and Mary Phelps Ives. In 1855, she married William Wood Seymour. Soon after the birth of her son in 1858, she got separated from the husband; her son died in Italy in 1864. Later she married George A. Fonda. She died in 1892 or 1896 from complications of Bright's disease in Louisville, Kentucky.

From the description of Commonplace book of Mary Alice Seymour, 1837-1896. (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens). WorldCat record id: 122510328