Frances Parkinson Keyes
(July 21, 1885 – July 3, 1970)

Envoy Apartments, 2400 16th St. NW, Columbia Heights neighborhood, DC.

A prolific novelist, Keyes was popular in her time, although her writing is dated and sentimental now. She also wrote three nonfiction books about her experiences living in Washington, and one book of poems, The Happy Wanderer (1935).

Keyes's novels include The Old Gray Homestead (1919), Queen Anne's Lace (1930), Senator Marlowe's Daughter (1933), Honor Bright (1936), Parts Unknown (1938), All That Glitters (1941), Crescent Carnival (1942), Came a Cavalier (1947), Joy Street (1950), Steamboat Gothic (1952), and The Chess Players (1960). She also published several inspirational books on Christmas, biographies of Catholic saints, a cookbook, a how-to book for aspiring writers, and a travelogue. Her memoirs are Letters from a Senator's Wife (1924), Capital Kaleidoscope: The Story of a Washington Hostess (1937), Roses in December (1960), and All Flags Flying (1972).

Keyes lived here with her husband, Henry Wilder Keyes, Senator from New Hampshire, from the 1920s into the 1940s.