Frances Lillian Wells Shaw was born in Chicago in 1872. She was the daughter of early Chicago shoe merchant Moses D. Wells and his wife, Frances E. Searls, and in 1893 married architect Howard Van Doren Shaw.

Frances was an author and poet. Several of her poems were published in Poetry magazine and other journals. She also wrote and adapted plays which were performed at an outdoor theater at the family home in Lake Forest, Ragdale, for friends and acquaintances.

The poem “Who Loves the Rain” was the most popular piece that Frances Shaw wrote. It was published in Poetry magazine in 1914—the same issue which featured newcomer Carl Sandburg. The poem was featured in many anthologies including one in Braille and one in French. The poem was even set to music. It reads:

Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise,
Who loves the rain,
And loves his home,
And looks on life with quiet eyes.

Frances Shaw’s husband built a writing studio for her on the Ragdale property. The cottage was named Wogden, a version of “Wog’s Den,” his nickname for Frances. Shaw lined the path to the studio with eight small elms and a balustrade. He referred to this section of the property as “Peacedale” because it was a restful “piece of Ragdale.”

Friend Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) wrote the poem “Lady” in Frances’s honor in 1915. Sandburg, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, author and journalist, was virtually unknown until his work was published in Poetry magazine.

Frances Wells Shaw died in 1937 at her home in Chicago at the age of 65. After her death, her daughter Evelyn published a collection of her work called Who Loves the Rain and Other Poems by Frances Shaw (1940).