The second of three daughters, Theodora Sarah Orne Jewett was born on 3 September 1849 in South Berwick, Maine, to Caroline F. Perry and Dr. Theodore H. Jewett. She grew up with extended family in her paternal grandfather's home, where she developed the habit of reading writers as diverse as Laurence Sterne, Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollett, Jane Austen, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The family's circumstances were comfortable. Her paternal grandfather was a prosperous retired sea captain, and her maternal grandfather was a physician (with whom her father interned).
Jewett's formal education was erratic because she suffered from rheumatism, for which her physician father recommended being outdoors. She was allowed much freedom to romp and explore her surroundings; being still as a "good" girl might was anathema to her. She also accompanied her father on his rounds. While her illness was serious--and continued to plague her throughout her life--another factor in her inconsistent schooling is revealed in her admission that she succumbed to "instant drooping" when "shut up in school." Jewett did, however, attend the Berwick Academy from 1861 to 1865, graduating three years before publishing "Jenny Garrow's Lovers" in The Flag of Our Union under the pseudonym A.
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