USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. II > Part 38
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On entering the work at the Inn, I found a Mothers' Meet- ing and very helpful work being done, with a goodly number in attendance, and while not so large as the Mothers' Meeting of the Association, I very soon found that many of the Associa- tion mothers came in from week to week, and some time later we had a meeting numbering 60 to 70.
I remained with the Friendly Inn until 1903, at which time I resigned, leaving the city for three months.
On my return, I opened a Mothers' Meeting at the old Rescue Mission on Ontario St. at the head of Vinegar Hill,
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Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
where we commenced with nineteen mothers. We worked here for some four years, our numbers increasing until we had an average attendance of 65 weekly.
At the end of this time the building we occupied was to be torn down, so we moved the mission work to 230 Prospect, the old Light & Hope Mission, where we remained eight years. About three years ago our increasing numbers demanded more room and better accommodations, and a year later, through the kindness of Rector Chas. E. Bubb and Mrs. E. W. Worthing- ton, the doors of Grace Episcopal Church were opened to us, where we have ample facilities for carrying on a larger work.
Much can be said of the work accomplished-has a record been kept of the good that has been done? No-only the Rec- ord Books of Heaven will ever tell the story. The sorrows, poverty, deaths and trouble that we have met with in all those years, never can be told. "What is the object of our meeting," many have asked. It is to make women better mothers and better wives, thereby making them better homemakers.
In looking over the audience today, I know many who would testify to what the Mothers' Meeting has been to them, and I see before me "those that have come out of great tribu- lation, whose robes have been washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb, and they are now rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them."
MRS. HARRIET AULT, WIFE OF MR. M. F. AULT, OF GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
I was Recording Secretary of the Relief Corps for four years, was Recording Secretary of our Woman's Christian Temperance Union for ten years, and Press Reporter for it at the same time, and am still Secretary and Press Reporter for
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
our G. A. R. Ladies. I was for one year (the limit), Flag In- structor, and this required that I write every public school su- perintendent in the state, the state laws requiring that the flag of our United States over the public school buildings be float- ing every school day, notifying the professors that the law re- quires such action. I received some very complimentary let- ters from the different superintendents. I enjoyed the work, and shall always hold in remembrance the kindness shown me in the work.
Mr. M. F. Ault enlisted in 1861, served four years and three months in Civil war, was wounded three times, still has a bullet in his right breast, lost his hearing entirely in right ear, a gun shot wound, struck by a piece of shell on his right leg, and lost the sight of right eye. Was obliged to have it removed to save the good eye. Contracted a bad hernia from which he has never recovered. I am giving you these par- ticulars that you may know there is no deception, and could enumerate many more terrible incidents but think this will cover the requirements.
H. M. AULT, 340 Beech St., Berea, O.
J. M. WILCOX
John Coates was a well educated man, a graduate of Ox- ford, a well-to-do Yorkshire land owner with strong repub- lican tendencies and his bitter denunciation of the desperate measures adopted by England toward the American colonies led to a discontent toward his native land, and at a Yorkshire dinner he proposed a toast to Washington and was so bitterly attacked he declared he would not live in a land where he could not honor so good a man as Washington. He came to America
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with his wife, Jane Middleton, and two sons, John and Charles. He was a cultured, widely-read gentleman and brought with him a fine library. There are copies of Shakespeare still pre- served that show evidence of his careful reading, and relics of silver plate, and silk, and linen garments, cherished by the great grandchildren that are proof of the ample means pos- sessed by him. Environment and fashions changed, but he al- ways wore the knee breeches and shoe buckles of the style of his young manhood. He was a man of very democratic tastes and entertained exceedingly liberal views on religious subjects. The Coates family first settled in Geneseo, New York, buying three hundred and twenty acres of partially improved land with orchard and house. It was the first farm house west of Canandaigua, the lumber for it having been brought thirty miles over an Indian trail. In 1861 they moved to Ohio and bought thirty-four hundred acres of land in Royalton town- ship. John Coates, father of Margaret, was also an Oxford graduate, and except as a matter of gratification and pleas- ure the advantage was not great in a new country where brawn counted for more than brain. He was a prosperous farmer and stock raiser and always a gentleman. Margaret was his fourth daughter and came with her parents and grand- parents to Ohio from New York. She was endowed with a fine mind and improved every opportunity afforded for study, was fond of books and had a discriminating taste in reading. She taught school before her marriage and inspired her children with high ideals of life. She was a woman of strong character and her influence was always for the right.
John Miller Wilcox was the second son of Stephen Miller Wilcox and his wife, Margaret Coates Wilcox. He was born in Royalton, Ohio, Nov. 9th, 1842. He was educated at the school
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
in Brecksville and the academy at Richfield. After finishing school he was for ten years principally engaged in teaching. In 1871, in partnership with Mr. P. B. Gardner, he bought and edited the Berea Advertiser. This partnership lasted for two years, when he moved to Cleveland and acted as deputy under Sheriff P. B. Smith. From 1874 to 1876 he was chief clerk of the Probate Court under Judge Tilden. In the fall of 1876 he was elected to the office of sheriff, and re-elected in 1878, serving until Jan. 1st, 1881.
He was elected to the office of sheriff at the age of 33 years, being the youngest man ever chosen for the office. Pub- lic interests were always near his heart, and whether in office or out of it he was a fearless champion of any project or meas- ure which he deemed of benefit to Cleveland. He worked hard in the fight against the company to lower the price of gas in the city, and after winning in the contest was asked to help in the final settlement with the company. It was agreed that a
certain per cent of the income of the gas company must be set aside as a fund to build a new city hall, and at one time this fund amounted to more than $600,000, but it was diverted to other uses and the city hall was never built. In 1886 he re- turned to newspaper work, becoming editorial writer for the Cleveland Press, which position he filled until 1893, when ill- ness compelled him to retire from active service. He died while a guest of Mayor Rose, at Rose Island, Alexandria Bay, New York, on August 18, 1895. Expressions of deepest regret were heard on every hand when it was known that Mr. Wilcox had passed from this life and his death was noted by the press throughout the country. The Cleveland Leader said of him: "Mr. Wilcox was a man who endeared himself to his intimates
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Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
to a great degree. He had a low voice and a calm manner. He was a disciple of Richard Cobden and was made an honorary member of the Cobden Club in London, and was one of the first if not the first to advocate the founding of a free trade club in this city."
Beautiful tributes were paid him by many distinguished men who were proud to call him friend, and at the funeral services it was said, "The public labors and trusts that were given him to bear, and they were neither few nor trifling, are over now. He met and discharged them, every one, with a zeal and faithfulness which leaves no need, no room today for ex- planation or apology. His honesty was innate and needed not the spur of bond or statute to insure the most scrupulous and exacting compliance with his every duty. His sense of the way and manner in which a public labor or a public duty should be discharged, would be a model for the maker of the strictest law of equity. No scheme, no act of public wrong, ever found in him a shield or a defender, and every movement to correct or to destroy or to defeat an existing or threatened menace to the general good, found him its friend, and his gifted speech, its ally. He lived in all the past and in his books with all the good, and the literature of the wisest and best was his con- stant delight and enjoyment.
Judge White said of him, "With chivalrous nobility he ever championed the cause of the poor, and of the unfortunate, and the oppressed. For the struggling, submerged undercurrent of society he was ready to bestow his best service. His life was a success, and out of the struggle of difficult beginnings he came into a field of broad and active influence and use- fulness."
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He was in touch and accord with all good institutions and measures in the march of human progress. W. E. Lewis said of him, "It is my most valued memory that he held me as a friend. Manly as he was, his heart beat as gently as a woman's for humanity. I knew him for many years as a public man, as a private citizen, and as a leader in his profession, and I never heard him utter a thought that was a discredit or express a view that was not an honor to his intelligence and his soul."
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Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
CONTENTS
PAGE
Frontispiece-Sorosis International, National and Local Presidents
Introduction 5
Woman's Employment Society 7
Department of Interior-Office of Indian Affairs 13
First Annual Report
22
Origin and History of New York Sorosis 26
Cleveland Sorosis 31
Sorosis Rooms
218
Membership
36
Constitution of Sorosis
43
President's Report, 1891-2
54
First Luncheon of Sorosis-Toasts
67
Woman, Her Caps and Handicaps-Mrs. Myra K. Fenton 73
Women's Press Clubs-Mrs. S. E. Bierce 74
Lecture on Color-Mary Keffer 77
First National W. C. T. U. Convention Report 79
Second Luncheon of Sorosis-Reported by Plain Dealer 83
Press Club Excursion-Report by Mrs. Kate H. T. Avery 87
Toasts-The Ohio Woman-Mrs. A. D. Davidson
93
Foreign Women Americanized-Josephine Humpal-Zeman
95
Higher Education in its Relation to Housekeeping and Home
Making-Miss Mary Evans, Principal of Lake Erie Seminary 99
What Women Can Do-Mrs. Charles Henrotin 102
Excursion to Chicago by Cleveland Sorosis-Report by
Mrs. W. G. Rose 107
Cleveland Sorosis-Helen Watterson Moody 111
Wise Thoughts from Great Men 114
Federation of Women's Club 115
Woman's View of the Woman's Convention-Mrs. Geo. A. Robertson 117
Federation of Women's Clubs -- Mrs. S. M. Perkins 120
First Anniversary of Cleveland Sorosis 122
Physical Culture-Talks from a Follower of Delsarte 125
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
Charities and Corrections-Mrs. E. W Jones 129
The Non-Partisan National W. C. T. U .- Mrs. H. M. Ingham 132 Woman and the Bible-Mrs. H. E. Hollingshead 140
Isabella of Castile-Mrs. Jennie Ruprecht 145
A Plea for Expression-Mrs. W. Lee Caldwell 149
Synopsis of Paper read before Sorosis-Helen C. Purdy 153
Influence of Art on Character-M. C. Quintrell 155
Woman's Preparation for Christian Activities-Leuty Corwin 159
Manual Training-Mrs. N. Coe Stewart 168
Letters Received by Sorosis from Distinguished Ladies 177
Artists of Cleveland-Luella Varney Serrao 178
Caroline L. O. Ransom 181
Life of A. M. Willard 184
Address by Louise Patterson 187
Mrs. Caroline M. Severance Cut 192
Sea and Shore-Miss M. C. Quintrell
193
Asbestos Cloth and Clothing-J. Elliot Snow 200
Women of the Bible-Mrs. Joshua Ross 202
Characteristics of the Poets-Mrs. Geraldine Hatch 204
Women In Business Life-The Lady Editors of Cleveland- Mrs. C. E. Tillinghast 209
Women in Business-Mrs. H. B. Roosa 215
House and Home Decoration-J. M. Phelps 219
The American Flag and Seal-Mrs. C. H. Seymour 224
Women's Clubs-C. S. Selover 227
Mary Queen of Scots-Mrs. N. A. Gilbert 230
Woman and the World's Fair- Mrs. M. C. Hickman 233
Discovery of America by Norsemen-J. H. Paine 237
A Picnic Down the Tennessee-Mrs. J. K. Hord 241
The Youth of Tennyson-Mrs. Geraldine Hatch 247
The Reward of Columbus 250
The Ascent of Vesuvius-Miss M. C. Quintrell . 255
The Over-Zealous Woman-Mrs. W. E. Brooks, Elyria 260
The Sorosis Gatherings 265
The Townsend Reception 267
September Luncheon 268
The Historical Banquet 269
The Myrtle Luncheon, April 29, 1893 274
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Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs
The Annual Meeting, May 5, 1893 . 282 Letter of Hattie Davis, Missionary to Peking, China (niece of Mrs. Rose) 289
Colleges on the Western Reserve 292
A Visit to Canaan Mountain-Martha Parmalee Rose 294
Cleveland Sorosis Official Organization 301
Report of President 314
Report of Executive Board 321
Annual Banquet 328
The Rose Banquet 330
Chronology of the Year
334
Articles and Address of General Federation of Women's Clubs, May, 1894 338
Corals-Mrs. S. M. Perkins 341
The Unison of Body and Mind-Mrs. M. J. Caton 344
Ocean Currents-Mrs. Martha Richardson 350
The Financial Side of the Woman's Physician-Dr. Lillian G. Towslee 355
A Plea for Women in the Business World-Mrs. H. S. Tobien The Annual Banquet of American Women in Literature,
375
Philanthropy and Trade-Lydia Hoyt Farmer . 362
The Province of Art in Greater Cleveland-Prof. Chas. F. Olney 371 Unity in Christian Work-Mrs. Clara T. Pomeroy (Mrs. Rev.J.M. ) 377 The Church and Sorosis-Mrs. Mary B. Ingham 383
Can Women Do It ?- Mrs. Geo. A. Robertson 385
The Gentlemen Response to Toast delivered by Mrs. C.S. Selover 389 The Future of Sorosis-Mrs. Frank Houghton 391
The Annual-Mrs. J. H. Paine 393
The World's Fair-Glimpses of the World's Parliament of
Religions-Mrs. Frances E. Shipherd 395
The Irish Industrial Village-Mrs. Ella Sturtevant Webb 401
The World's Fair and Its Benefits-Mrs. Joseph H. Thomas 403
Impression of the World's Fair-Mrs. Ella Grant Wilson 404
A Journey to the Mid-Winter Fair -Mrs. J. Albert Venen Review of Hamilton's Official Acts-Mrs. W. G. Rose, at Novelist Club 412
405
McMasters Views of Hamilton 415
President Jefferson -- Mrs. W. G. Rose, at Novelist Club 416
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The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of
Presidents Monroe, Adams and Jackson-Mrs. Rose at Novelist Club 424
Are Women's Clubs Elevating and Educational ?-- M. P. R.
at Novelist Club 432
French Schools as Compared with Dutch -- Mrs. W. G. Rose at Novelist Club 439
Jews and Contemporaneous History of Other Nations 448
Cleveland Health Protective Association 460
Health Protective League Convention, Cleveland, May 12, 1899 466
Program 467
International Woman's Health Protective League -- Olive Pond-Amies 472
Physical Economics -- Miss E. Marguerite Lindsey 476
Town Improvements-Marion Murdoch 480
Vacation School -- Mrs. M. B. Schwab 487
Report of Woman's Municipal Improvement Association -- Mrs. A. H. Pell 489
Play Grounds-Mrs. Francis Pell 490
Waste Paper Receptacles -- C. W. Toland
495
Health -- Mary D. Law, M. D. 408
Pure Air -- Conrad Mizer 500
The Institutional Church -- Mrs. S. P. Churchill 500
Women of Our Republic-Mrs. S. M. Perkins 506
Cookery in Our Public Schools 509
Cook Book -- Mrs. Arthur Hatch 514
Annual Meeting Health Protective, Cleveland, May 8-11, 1899
Mrs. Grace D. S. Pearson 515
Flower Culture-Mrs. Ella Grant Wilson 517
Vivisection-Mrs. Stella Hatch 521
Remarks-Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, Pres. Toledo Health Protective 527
Pan-American Meeting-Reported by National President 533
Petition from National H. P. A. to Columbus Legislature 535
Cultivation of Vacant Lots-President of H. P. A., Cleveland.
542
Good Homes Better than Schools-Mrs. J. N. Chandler Good Roads-Hon. Martin Dodge, Ohio State Senator. 551
500
Report Read before Mothers' Meeting Association (Grace Episcopal Church) by Mrs. W. E. Bowman Mrs. Harriet Ault 555
552
J. M. Wilcox 556
4767
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