Agnes Lee

Lee was born Martha Agnes Rand in 1868 in Chicago.[1] She was the second daughter of William H. Rand, an American printer and publisher who co-founded the Rand McNally Company.[1][2] She was educated at a boarding school in Vevey, Switzerland.[1]

Lee wrote a collection of children's verse in 1898 titled The Round Rabbit.[1] Her debut poetry collection, The Legend of a Thought, was published in 1889.[1] She wrote books of poetry including The Border of the Lake in 1910, The Sharing in 1914, Faces and Open Doors in 1922, and New Lyrics and a Few Old Ones in 1931.[1][3] She translated Théophile Gautier's Enamels and Cameos and Other Poems in 1903.[1] In 1926, Lee received the guarantor's prize from Poetry Magazine.[1]

In 1890 she married Francis Watts Lee, a photographer, and moved to Boston.[1] They had a daughter. In 1911 she married Otto Freer, a surgeon.[1] Her second husband died in 1932.

Lee died from pneumonia in 1939 at her home, 81 East Elm Street, in Chicago.[1] She was buried at Graceland Cemetery.[1] A collection of letters exchanged between her and poet Edgar Lee Masters is archived in the Newberry Library in Chicago.[1][4][5]