Morristown Author Blends Fiction, Family History, And A Cause

MORRISTOWN, NJ — Adding fictional elements to historical figures is by no means a new concept. We’ve seen Abraham Lincoln fight vampires and Edgar Allen Poe solve murder mysteries. However, it's not often we see writers using their own lineage to put a fictional twist on history.

Jane Loeb Rubin, of Morristown, taps into this family tree fiction and has written a series of award-winning books based on the concept. Her most recently published novel, “Over There,” made the Historical Novel Society's First Chapters short list, among several other accolades.

Rubin has written three books, with a fourth on the way, based on her great-grandmother’s family. Her great-grandmother, Mathil­da (or Tillie), died from a “woman’s dis­ease” in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. The collection is called “The Gilded City” series.

Rubin earned a Bachelor’s of Science and a Master’s of Science at the University of Michigan before earning her Master’s of Business Administration at Washington University. After being diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she believes may have killed Mathilda a century earlier, Rubin retired from her 30-year career as a healthcare executive and began writing in 2009.

“There are no photos of (Mathilda) and no living relative could remember her name, only that she died of a 'woman's disease,'” Rubin said in a statement. “I finally found her on Ancestry.com. For me, Mathilda symbolizes the thousands of women just like her, lost in history, who had minimal care. She's a symbol of how far we've come.”

The Gilded City Series

The first installment of Rubin’s “Gilded City Series” is called “In the Hands of Women.” The story is told through the eyes of Tillie's younger sister, Hannah, who is a young OB/GYN in early 20th-century New York City. The story explores “the restrictive state of women’s rights, backroom abortions, the plight of immigrants to the Lower East Side of NYC, and the prison system at Blackwell’s Island.”

The second book of the Gilded City series, dedicated to Mathilda, is titled “Threadbare.” The story follows Tillie in Gilded Age New York, who, while trying to start her own garment company, pushes back against the patriarchal and problematic notions that plagued society during that time.

The latest installment in the series is “Over There,” released in May this year. The story brings four of Tillie’s family members, all medical professionals, together during World War I. Readers can expect to experience the “jarring reality of trench warfare, magnificent rise of the American Hospital in Paris, unimagined medical innovations owed to the dedication of healthcare workers, and the universal, frightening impact war has on children.”

The next book in the Gilded City series, “The Hat Trick,” brings Tillie’s family to the Borscht Belt in Sullivan County, New York, which skyrocketed in the mid-1920s. The book is set to release in 2026.

Rubin’s “Gilded City” series can be found at all online retailers, Indigo Books, select Barnes and Noble Book stores, and upon request from Level Best Books.

Click here to learn more about Rubin and her work.

The Mathilda Fund

After Rubin’s cancer diagnosis, she immediately began looking for ways to help women who have suffered the same illness that she and likely her great-grandmother had. That’s when she launched the Mathilda Fund, in her relative’s honor.

Proceeds from the Mathilda Fund go towards The Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, which focuses on treatment drugs for the deadly disease.

“The Mathilda Fund is (fifteen) years old and has raised over $80,000 - mostly from small donations. It's enough to fund a small study,” Rubin’s website reads. “All donations are channeled through the Mathilda Fund into the large OCRA and used for research. With your help, we can and will find better ways to prevent, treat, and cure this disease.”

Click here to donate to the Mathilda Fund and learn more about The Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance.