Frances Beem was an early 20th-century American author and illustrator of children's books.[1] [2]
Frances M. Beem was born in Illinois on May 5, 1881. Her father was born in Indiana and her mother in either Indiana or Wisconsin. She had one brother, Jacob Darrel Beem, a retail shoe salesman.
Her training in art is unknown but she did exhibit three watercolor illustrations at The Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the Arts Students’ League December 12–29, 1912 in Chicago. Frances Beem is listed in the catalogue of the Seventh Annual Exhibition by the Chicago Society of Miniature Painters that was held at the Art Institute of Chicago, February 13- March 30, 1919. Her address is recorded as 4310 Sheridan Rd, Chicago. Her three displayed works were:
Alice Drake Eames- lent by Mrs. Jean Eames Bliss
Captain O.E. Eames- lent by Mrs. Jean Eames Bliss
Melville C. Eames
She published a textbook with another person about teaching technical perspective drawing to beginning high school students.
She taught high school art and drawing from 1917 to 1946 at Nicholas Senn High School, a public 4–year high school located in the Edgewater neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois.
When Frances Beem retired from teaching, she moved to La Jolla, California where she lived for several years. She died in San Diego, California, on November 10, 1971 at the age of 90. She was then buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States of America.