Editing Kate Douglas Wiggin (section)

==Early life==
[[File:PostcardSalmonFallsMEHomeOfKateDouglasWiggin1916.jpg|thumb|left|[[Kate Douglas Wiggin House]] in the Salmon Falls section of [[Hollis, Maine]]]]

Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of lawyer Robert N. Smith, and of [[Wales|Welsh]] descent.<ref>[http://www.everyculture.com/multi/Sr-Z/Welsh-Americans.html Welsh Americans] at www.everyculture.com</ref><ref name=nie>{{Cite NIE|wstitle=Wiggin, Kate Douglas |year=1905}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Wiggin experienced a happy childhood, even though it was colored by the [[American Civil War]] and her father's death. She and her sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother moved her little family from Philadelphia to [[Portland, Maine]], then, three years later, upon her remarriage, to the little village of [[Hollis, Maine|Hollis]]. There she matured in rural surroundings, with her sister and her new baby brother Philip.

Notably, she once met the novelist [[Charles Dickens]]. Her mother and another relative had gone to hear Dickens read in Portland, but Wiggin, aged 11, was thought to be too young to warrant an expensive ticket. The following day, she found herself on the same train as Dickens and engaged him in a lively conversation for the course of the journey, an experience which she later detailed in a short memoir titled ''A Child's Journey with Dickens'' (1912).

Her education was spotty, consisting of a short stint at a [[dame school]]; some home schooling under the "capable, slightly impatient, somewhat sporadic" instruction of Albion Bradbury (her stepfather); a brief spell at the district school; a year as a boarder at the Gorham Female Seminary, a winter term at Morison Academy in [[Baltimore, Maryland]]; and a few months' stay at [[Abbot Academy]] in Andover, Massachusetts, where she graduated with the class of 1873.  Although rather casual, this was more education than most women received at the time.