She had little formal education—an occasional tutor or term of school as the family moved from New York to Dresden to England to Long Island to Jamaica during her childhood. Spirited and apt, Hawthorne capitalized on these moves by putting the family experiences into several of her numerous books. For example, Makeshift Farm (1925) describes their life on Long Island, and Island Farm (1926) tells of their Jamaica experiences. During World War I, Hawthorne volunteered for war work in France for the YWCA and the Red Cross, sending back to the New York Times and the Herald Tribune accounts of her observations of Paris under siege. She was a prolific book reviewer for both newspapers from 1917 to 1925. Hawthorne's youthful productions were published in St. Nicholas magazine. She established herself as a serious writer with "A Legend of Sonora," a story appearing in Harper's magazine when she was twenty. Throughout her life she published many poems, stories, articles, and book reviews, and more than 40 books. Hawthorne's simple, straightforward, and unaffected style gave her work a popular appeal. Both her biographies and her histories show evidence of greater artistic potential than she ever actually realized. Source: https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/hawthorne-hildegarde