Daisy Bacon
Daisy Sarah Bacon (May 23, 1898 – March 1, 1986) was an American pulp fiction magazine editor and writer, best known as the editor of Love Story Magazine from 1928 to 1947. She moved to New York in about 1917, and worked at several jobs before she was hired in 1926 by Street & Smith, a major pulp magazine publisher, to assist with "Friends in Need", an advice column in Love Story Magazine. Two years later she was promoted to editor of the magazine, and stayed in that role for nearly twenty years. Love Story was one of the most successful pulp magazines, and Bacon was frequently interviewed about her role and her opinions of modern romance. Some interviews commented on the contrast between her personal life as a single woman, and the romance in the stories she edited; she did not reveal in these interviews that she had a long affair with a married man, Henry Miller, whose wife was the writer Alice Duer Miller. Street & Smith gave Bacon other magazines to edit: Ainslee's in the mid-1930s and Pocket Love in the late 1930s; neither lasted until 1940. In 1940 she took over as editor of Romantic Range, which featured love stories set in the American West, and the following year she was also given the editorship of Detective Story. Romantic Range and Love Story ceased publication in 1947, but in 1948 she became the editor of both The Shadow and Doc Savage, two of Street & Smith's hero pulps. However, Street & Smith shut down all their pulps the following April, and she was let go. In 1954 she published a book, Love Story Writer, about writing romance stories. She wrote a romance novel of her own in the 1930s but could not get it published, and in the 1950s also worked on a novel set in the publishing industry. She struggled with depression and alcoholism for much of her life, and attempted suicide at least once. After she died, a scholarship fund was established in her name. Early life and early career Daisy Sarah Bacon was born on May 23, 1898, in Union City, Pennsylvania. Her father, Elmer Ellsworth Bacon, divorced his first wife in 1895 to marry Daisy's mother, Jessie Holbrook. Elmer died of Bright's disease on January 1, 1900, and Jessie moved to her family's farm in Barcelona, New York, on Lake Erie on the outskirts of Westfield. Daisy was taught to read and write at age three by her maternal grandmother, Sarah Ann Holbrook. One of Daisy's great-uncles, Dr. Almon C. Bacon, was the founder of Bacone College in Oklahoma. Jessie remarried in 1906, to George Ford. George and Jessie had one child, Esther Joa Ford, born October 1, 1906; George died on January 24, 1907, leaving Jessie Ford alone to raise the two half-sisters. In 1909 Jessie left the farm and moved into Westfield, where Daisy attended the local high school, Westfield Academy. While she was in high school the Westfield Republican