Jane Pentzer Myers (b. Germantown, Ohio, 1 April 1852;
d. Iowa City, Iowa, 31 January 1917)
**revised 28 October 2024**
Jane Pentzer Myers published only one book, a collection of twelve children’s fantasies, Stories of Enchantment (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1901), illustrated by Harriet Roosevelt Richards. Several of the stories contain Native American elements, like “The Ghost Flower” and “The Corn Fairy”, and thus may be placed alongside similar works of the same time-period like Zauberlinda the Wise Witch (1901) by Eva Katharine Gibson and some of the stories by L. Frank Baum. Myers's narratives are skillful—one is surprised that this is her only book.
Very little has been known of the author, and what I had published here in 2012 turned out to be incorrect. Thanks to a relative of the author, I can now re-write this entry with correct information.
She was born Mary Jane
Pentzer, though she never used her first name, and was generally known as "Jennie." Her father was Reverend Jacob Pentzer (1808-1884),
her mother was Jacob's second wife, Martha Coons (1825-1913); they were apparently married in 1848. Martha Coons was the daughter of Rev. John Coons (1797-1869). Jennie had four half-siblings from her father's first marriage to Emma Meek (1812-1847); and several from her father's second marriage. The family moved from near Dayton, Ohio, to Wilton, Iowa in 1859. Jennie married John Edward Myers (1848-1898) in Wilton on 26 June 1874. The couple moved to Iowa City, where they had three sons, the second of whom died in infancy. Jennie was known as a gifted musician, but around the age of forty, she became invalided by rheumatism, and then she took up writing, reportedly contributing to many magazines (none of these writings have been traced). Her only book was published for the Christmas season in 1901. It was dedicated to her niece. After she was widowed, Jennie lived for a while in Muscatine, where one of her sons taught in the high school. She moved back to Iowa City around 1908, dying at her home, in the early morning of 31 January 1917, of complications of diseases.
*This entry was revised and updated on 10 October 2012; again on 15 January 2019; and again on 28 October 2024. I am grateful to Julie (Pentzer) Olson for the information presented here.
