Mary Josephine "Maisie" Ward Sheed (4 January 1889 – 28 January 1975), who published under the name Maisie Ward, was a writer, speaker, and publisher. Maisie's brother Leo Ward was co-founder of the publishing house Sheed and Ward; Maisie took his place when Leo left to become a priest.
Early life
She was born in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight on 4 January 1889, the eldest of the five children of Wilfrid Philip Ward and the novelist Josephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward. On her mother's side she was descended from Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk and on her father's side from William George Ward, a prominent member of the Oxford Movement. All four of her grandparents were converts to Roman Catholicism.
She spent her childhood at first on the Isle of Wight, then Eastbourne, and finally in Dorking, before being sent off to board at St Mary's School, Cambridge. Here she was influenced by the preaching of Robert Hugh Benson and inspired by Mary Ward who had founded the order of nuns who ran the school.
Career
On leaving school, Maisie returned home to become her father's secretary. She worked for the Red Cross as a nurse during the First World War, and after her father's death in 1916 she co-edited with her mother a posthumous collection of his last lectures.
