Sarah (1872-1968) was a Princeton summer resident and prolific author of books for young adults in the style of Zane Grey and Joseph P. Lincoln. She was born and educated in Newton MA, and her family summered on Cape Cod. She graduated from the Lowell Institute Of Design at MIT as a textile designer and then studied writing at Radcliffe and Boston University. She taught kindergarten in the Newton Public Schools for twenty years.

She began her writing career writing a series of non fiction books for young adults, entitled The Story of Lumber, The Story of Wool, etc., but it was fiction that eventually captured her talents.

She wrote over forty novels with a Cape Cod setting for young people, some of these titles were Within the Harbor, Hidden Shoals, Flood Tides. The novels usually took place in the town of Belleport "Which she made so real to her hundreds of readers that they could not believe that it did not really exist and made trips up and down the Cape looking for it. Sara Ware found this amusing" (Boston Author's Club memorial essay by Helen C. Fernald). Two of her novels were even made into movies. Her very first novel The Taming of Zenah Henry  became Captain Hurricane when released by RKO. The Harbor Road filmed by Universal became Danger Ahead.

She wintered in Boston and summered in Princeton where her sister Dr. Alice Bassett was the doctor who administered to the residents of Fernside. Fernside was a summer retreat for women involved in Boston's retail trade. The Bassett sisters lived opposite Fernside on Mountain Road.

In spite of the fact that only one novel The Wall, Between appears to take place in Princeton and concerns an old Princeton family feud, Sara Ware obviously loved Princeton and found peace and beauty here. After she retired from teaching Kindergarten she wrote...

"When Labor Day came and the school opened, I was not oblidged to turn my back on the glorious foliage surrounding our country home. I could linger until the maples on the slopes of Wachusett were scarlet, until the wild grapes hung on the stone walls and scented the air, until the early frost nipped the last aster, until open fires crackled on the hearth and nuts rolled down from the Walnut trees."(I Grope My Way, autobiographical manuscript; Boston Public Library).

She cut an unusual figure around town, resembling a character in an English detective novel. She dressed as one would think Miss Marple of Agatha Christie fame would have dressed in tweed skirts, a man's shirt and walking shoes. It was always a surprise to see her in Princeton's Post Office and General Store.

When she died at 95, she left a collection of over 500 books of her own writings and those of her contemporaries to the Boston Public Library. The collection is now in the Rare Book and Manuscript Collection. There you will find her autobiography mentioned above.