USA > Texas > Prominent women of Texas > Part 11
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As an adjunct to her system of conducting the Chil- dren's Department of the News, Mrs. Miner employs the plan that has been elaborated from the Chautauquan idea. During the vacation months of the little ones, she teaches, through her columns, a "summer school," keeping alive the children's interest in the studies they have temporarily laid aside with- out infringing the rest so necessary to recuperate their bud- ding powers. Competitive examinations and the awarding
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of prizes give zest to the plan and render it, not only popu- lar, but productive of the best results.
Mrs. Miner's labors in behalf of the young have not been restricted to newspaper work. Her productions in the field of juvenile literature are found in several of the prominent children's magazines of the day, and she has written, with and without collaborators, seven books devoted to the in- struction of children.
Mrs. Miner is a member of the State Press Association, of Texas; of the Texas Woman's Press Association, of which she is vice president; of the Toledo Press Club, and of the Michigan Woman's Press Association, which she helped to organize. She is also one of the organizers, and secretary of the Texas Woman's Council, by which she was lately chosen one of its delegates to the National Woman's Council, to represent the interests, the progress, and the culture of her sex in the State of her adoption.
Ten years altogether is the sum of her journalistic experi- ence, and in that time she has made a record of activity and accomplishment that might easily cover a period of twice that score of years. The mereenumeration of her labors and of her affiliations with literary bodies indicate the purpose and energy of her life; the list of her achievements the meas- ure of its success.
MRS. HUGH NUGENT FITZGERALD, nee Alice M. Par- sons, is the daughter of Dr. R. F. Parsons of Iowa, and a native of that State. Her paternal ancestors came over with the Puritans and settled in Maine, and her mother's family were among the first settlers of Virginia. She was educated in the schools of Iowa and finished at Vassar Col- lege on the Hudson. She married Hugh N. Fitzgerald, a South Carolinian and journalist, in 1879, and is the mother of three children. At an early age she wrote short stories for the newspapers and for the Household and other periodicals. In 1883 she determined to become a trained journalist and since that period has been connected with some daily paper. Was three years literary, society and
P. W. of T .- 9
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exchange editor of the Sedalia Morning Democrat and regular correspondent to the daily papers of St. Louis and Kansas City. She came to Texas with her family in 1889 and was for four years in charge of the literary and society depart- ments of the Dallas Times Herald, under the management of C. E. Gilbert, which was in those years regarded as the lead- ing afternoon newspaper in the State. During the World's Fair Mrs. Fitzgerald spent several months in Chicago as special correspondent for the Times Herald and Dallas Star, as well as furnishing weekly letters for a number of leading Northern papers.
For two seasons she was in charge of the social depart- ment of the Dallas News and also on its daily assignment list, but resigned on account of ill health. The summer of 1895 she passed in Colorado as the correspondent of the Fort Worth Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Journal and Denver Republican. During her visit there she also contributed to the Manitou Society Journal and the daily papers of Colorado Springs, and was selected to write up the great flower parade of Colorado Springs for the spe- cial carnival edition of the Daily Telegraph. Mrs. Fitzgerald is a trained reporter, and ably fills assignments in any de- partment of the daily newspaper, although her specialty is society reporting, in which she is especially happy, having been reared in that atmosphere, possessing a keen sense of the beautiful and artistic, and ever keeping herself en rap- port with the forms, frills and flutters of Le Beau Monde. She has traveled extensively in this country, and is well known in the journalistic circles of the North and East. She is the regular society correspondent from Dallas of the Fort Worth Gazette and the Globe Democrat, and during her hus- band's absence last winter at Austin filled his place as spe- cial correspondent for those papers, the New York World and several other metropolitan dailies.
MRS. EVA LANCASTER .- Among the pioneer newspaper women of the State, the oldest is Mrs. Eva Lancaster, of San Antonio, who has reached the age of seventy-five years, her
MRS. EVA LANCASTER.
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useful life having been largely devoted to active literary pur- suits. At the time of her marriage, more than half a century ago, her husband was publishing and editing the State Advo- cate, in Carroll County, Mississippi. They came to Texas in 1848, and established a widely known paper, the Texas Ranger, in Washington. At this period Mr. Lancaster took an active interest in political affairs, which necessitated his frequent absence from the office of the Ranger. Much of the editorial work and general supervision devolved upon Mrs. Lancaster, who guarded the best interests of the enterprise. Many letters of congratulation and encomiums were received, for in the South, previous to 1866, it was unusual to see a lady thus engaged, and the editor of the Ranger was almost alone in her vocation. Lincoln's proclamation was read to her in her office. Almost immediately her husband augmented the forces, and the Ranger was left entirely to her management. When the trying times of conscripting arrived and the paper's last printer was put in rank, she called in idle boys from the streets and put them to cases, publishing half a sheet until the boys had learned to set type. Her servants worked the hand press, rolling slow but sure, and she was thus enabled to disseminate the latest war news. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, being advised of the situation, detailed two printers from the trans-Mississippi department, who in time appeared to render her valuable assistance.
When the war closed the Ranger was published at Nava- sota. Mrs. Lancaster's husband died in 1874, after which she discontinued the publication of the paper. Mrs. Lancas- ter was a native Georgian, the daughter of Mr. Franklin Barnett, and a near relative of Mr. N. C. Barnett, the secre- tary of that State. Her mother was Miss Ann Briscoe, daughter of Dr. John Briscoe, a prominent physician of Augusta, Georgia.
MRS. AURELIA HADLEY MOHL has the masculine endur- ing cast of mind which grows better with age. She began her career as a professional journalist in 1863 and is still actively engaged in newspaper work, having been a member
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of the editorial staff of the Houston Post since 1892. She has devoted herself to the performance of her duties with the energies of a strong will, and the fidelity of conscientiousness ; to these qualities she unites great vivacity of temperament. Her literary productions display a broad, easy mastery of the resources of language, a grace and fluency, the result of her liberal culture and long experience. Mrs. Mohl was prominent in organizing the Texas Woman's Press Asso- ciation, and during her residence at the National Capital held the position of corresponding secretary of the Woman's National Press Association, and later was elected vice pres- ident of the Texas division. For thirteen years she served as Washington correspondent for the Houston Age, San Antonio Herald, Waco Examiner, Dallas Commercial, Dallas Herald, and Texas Siftings. Her writings also appeared in the Youth's Companion (Boston), New York Examiner, Philadelphia Times, Chicago Standard and many other papers. In 1866 Mrs. Mohl wrote a remarkable story, “An Afternoon Nap," in which she predicted a number of future inventions, one of which has been realized in the telephone. Her exquisite poem, "An Army with Green Banners," is familiar to the readers of "Gems from a Texas Quarry;" while among her essays specially worthy of mention are found "Homes of Poetical Quotations," "Sir Philip Syd- ney," and "Soup, Salad and Civilization." Mrs. Mohl's duties on the Post have been performed with peculiar facility, for her long residence in Houston has given her a wide acquaintance and an extensive influence. She came to this city at a very early age, and this residence has only been in- terrupted during the years spent in Washington and two years in Europe, whither her husband, Mr. Frederick Mohl, was sent during the war as agent for the Confederate govern- ment. Mrs. Mohl became a member of the Baptist Church of Houston, in 1846, and it was here she was married in 1851 by Rev. Rufus C. Burleson, then pastor of that church.
MISS M. B. FENWICK has contributed essentially to the tone and stamina of journalistic work in Texas. She
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has written considerably for Kate Field's Washington and other Northern papers, while as special correspondent for various publications her pen sketches have proven de- lightfully humorous and lifelike. Miss Fenwick has acquired an extensive acquaintance with the literature of the day, and has correct taste and discrimination. Aside from her pres- tige as a writer, she is rich in the finer qualities of mind and heart, which win for her innumerable friends. She is justly the recipient of many social courtesies at her home in San Antonio, where she meets the requirements of a responsible position on the staff of The Express. Miss Fenwick was originally from Ohio.
MISS BESSIE AGNESS DWYER is the author of two re- markable stories, "Mr. Moore, of Albuquerque," and "A Daughter of Eve." Her many sketches of army life and vivid word painting of scenes in two Territories, as well as in Old Mexico, won immediate recognition. Her work bears the impress of her artistic and dramatic talent. Even in early life her histrionic gifts were remarkable and dominated amateur circles in Texas. Her many literary gifts were an inheritance from her father, the late Judge Thomas A. Dwyer, who was associated with the early history of Texas and the Rio Bravo. Miss Dwyer at present fills a position on the staff of the National Economist, Washington, D. C., and she is correspondent for some of the prominent Southern journals. Her home is in San Antonio.
MISS SARA HARTMAN is well known in literary and jour- nalistic circles in the Southwest as a graceful writer, an editor of judgment and marked ability, and a progressive and successful business woman. She was for several years the editor and principal proprietor of The Gulf Messenger, a magazine of literary merit, published in San Antonio, Texas. Miss Hartman's father, John Jacob Hartman, came originally from Berne, Switzerland, and her mother, Sarah Bradfield, from Oxford, England. Miss Hartman is by birth a Canadian, having been born just over the border, at
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Niagara Falls. She began her career as a journalist by accepting a position as "assistant editor and society re- porter" on the little evening paper published in St. Cath- arine's. Three years later she accepted a place on the staff of the Trenton, New Jersey, True American, and since that date has devoted her time and talent to literary pursuits. She has many friends in this State, who admire her conversa- tional gifts, her attractive presence and sunny nature.
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CHAPTER XX.
EDUCATORS.
MRS. WILLIE D. HOUSE-MRS. MARY LOUISE NASH- MISS S. L. LAMBDIN-MRS. S. R. BEEBE - MRS. R. O. ROUNSAVALL.
MRS. WILLIE D. HOUSE .- The faculty of imparting knowledge is a gift developed by training, and enriched by study and observation. In this faculty inheres the magnetism that impels attention, and the persuasive force that commands obedience; when supplemented by cul- tured speech as the vehicle of ripe thought it is irresistible in its dominion over the young mind. Like other gifts of nature, it is given to the few and, in its inchoate state, is the "one talent" of the parable, whose value lies in its increase, and whose increase is wholly in the power of the possessor. The favored few do not always have the wisdom to develop and enrich their inheritance. Rare, indeed, there- fore, do the annals of education celebrate a teacher in whose life has dominated the perfected genius of instruction. So rare are these instances, and so worthy of renown have they been held, that they are found embalmed in even the legends of the ages of fable. Silenus was the preceptor of Bacchus, and Phonix taught Achilles. They are also found in the earliest records of authentichistory. Socrates taught Plato; Aristotle taught Alexander; and Pythagoras was the in- structor of Numa Pompilius, Rome's second king. Orbilius
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-the flogging Orbilius - Horace's teacher, is remembered, not for his virtues or his talents, but for his brutal methods of instilling knowledge. From Quintilian, in the first century, and Alcuinus, the teacher of Charlemagne, in the eighth, and down through the conventual schools of the Middle Ages to the present era of advanced didactics, scarce half a score of truly great teachers have lived in each of the twenty centuries of educational experience. Modern progress in all the arts of life, especially the modern system of normal instruction, will henceforth enlarge and dignify the labor of school teachers, and give to their well-earned fame the recording pen of history. Already the work has begun, already the field is filling with earnest, gifted and learned instructors, and already is the current literature of our day fixing them upon its page for the applause of future generations. Among these instructors, none are surer of their reward than Mrs. Willie D. House of Waco, Texas.
Mrs. House is a native Texan, born in Austin County. Her father, Doctor Durham, in 1843 emigrated from Georgia to the Republic of Texas, where he married Mrs. Pridham, who, in her early youth, had come to the great West. He de- scended from a stock distinguished for its military service in defense of the country -his great grandfather having served in the American revolution, and his grandfather in the War of 1812. He died when his only surviving child, Mrs. House, was twelve years of age, and his widow now lives with this daughter. Mrs. House's education began in the country schools of Washington County, where she qualified herself for teaching and training the youth of her section. In this, the beginning of her useful career as an instructor, she displayed the qualities that in her maturer experience attained excep- tional growth and vigor. After three years of self-discipline in the schoolroom, during which she closely analyzed her inherent fitness for the vocation of a teacher, she resolved upon the arduous business as the pursuit of her life. This resolution was followed by her matriculation in the Peabody Normal of the University of Nashville, where she took the prescribed course, and with it the degree of Licentiate of
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Instruction. She was also honored with the Peabody medal, a token and a memorial of the school's recognition of superior excellence in all its departments. After her graduation, she returned to Texas where her reputation for scholarship and force of character had preceded her, and, as a tribute to her high order of ability, she was assigned by the State Board of Education to the charge of summer normal work, in the interest of which she conducted sessions at Mineola, Victoria, Marshall, and Lampasas. She was subsequently called to the responsible duty of conducting the primary and geographical departments at the capital of the State. After retiring from this service, she accepted a position in the city of Tyler, where she taught until tendered the principalship of one of the ward schools of the city of Waco. After laboring three years in this new service, she was promoted to the superintendency of all the city schools-a position that but once before in the State of Texas had been filled by a woman. This high trust was discharged with conscientious ability, and with such scrupulous regard to discipline and method of instruction that, during her administration, and since, the public schools of Waco are noted for their order, their attractiveness, and the marked proficiency of their pupils.
Mrs. House is an active member of the State Teachers' Association, of which she was at one time the vice president, and of which she is now the secretary. She is also the vice president of the Central Texas Teachers' Summer Normal School of Waco, and is otherwise connected with educational schemes looking to the moral and intellectual enlighten- ment of the present and future generations of children in Texas.
Mrs. House was married at the tender age of sixteen, and is the mother of one child, a daughter, Miss Lola Belle House, who graduated with honor, being the valedictorian of her class, and is now treading the footsteps of her dis- tinguished mother, both as a student and a teacher. Both mother and daughter are, in their religious beliefs, inclined to the Presbyterian faith. Mrs. House, though qualified to adorn the highest social station, is seldom seen outside the
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haunts of domestic and professional life. Ruskin once said that a man should first fit himself for society and then keep out of it. Mrs. House seems to have acted upon his advice. In the true spirit of altruism, she forgets her own pleasures in the performance of duties for the happiness of others. In her conversation freshness pervades every expression, and she is never betrayed into the utterance of a trite or hack- neyed sentiment. Like Richter, if she is in possession of a commonplace thought, she keeps it an awful secret to herself. Her mental structure is strength, energy and aggression, and her features are its true interpreters. Her mien, her manner, and her movement proclaim her one of nature's leaders, and nobly has she led her little followers in the cause of human improvement and progress. Most successfully has she worked in the past, most worthily is she struggling with the problems of the present, most unselfishly is she sowing the seed for the harvest of the future, and, though in the ages that are to come her name may not be remembered, her work, like a benediction, will be silently felt in the blessings it has invoked.
MRS. MARY LOUISE NASH, an educator in the strictest sense of the word, was born in Panama, New York, 1826. She came of the old Puritan stock who were famous at Lexington and Bunker Hill, which entitled her to a certifi- cate as a Daughter of the Revolution.
Mary Brigham, founder of Mt. Holyoke; Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin ; and the renowned Charlotte Cush- man, are found on the branches of the same genealogical tree. She loved books from childhood, and received a thorough education. She married a Southern gentleman, who was engaged in teaching, and for many years they were at the head of the best Southern colleges. At the close of the war, requiring a change of climate, they came to Sherman and established the Institute, a chartered school for girls, where Mrs. Nash still presides as lady principal. Amid the varied duties of her profession she has preserved her love for literary pursuits, and has for many years published a school monthly of decided merit. She has been pronounced a genius as a
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dramatist, and takes delight in exercising her talent in this direction, while her achievement as a scientist has brought. that department of her school up to the standard of the finest educational institutions in the South. She supervises her literary societies ; has Agassiz, a chapter of the W. C. A., as well as a Shakespearean club; and is a graduate of the C. L. S. C. class, 1890.
Mrs. Nash has proven herself a ruling power in favor of the higher culture for women, that has been felt throughout the South, and Texas will never cease to appreciate the influence of the noble women who turn to Sherman Institute as their Alma Mater.
MISS S. L. LAMBDIN has been well and favorably known as an able, earnest and successful educator since she began teaching in the Waco Female College in 1857. Many and widely dispersed over the State are those who have received from her their intellectual training and to her former pupils in their distant homes, her salutary precepts recur with great power. Cultivated and disciplined by her training, strength- ened by her faith in the finer qualities of their nature, they remember her efforts with feelings of gratitude that deepen as time passes. Among her earliest pupils may be mentioned Mrs. E. A. Mckinney, Mrs. Warwick Jenkins, Mrs. Kendall, Mrs. Sul Ross of College Station; Mrs. Bob Ross, Mrs. Killingsworth, Mrs. Marshall, Mrs. Parrott, Mrs. Davis Gurley, Mrs. Mannahan of Pecos; Mrs. Judge Battle, Mrs. J. H. Harrison, Mrs. Chas. Stuart of Houston and Mrs. Padgitt.
MRS. S. R. BEEBE has achieved success as an educator, her aim having been to found character in pupils, and in- fluence for good all those by whom she has been sur- rounded. She has a monument in the hearts of many friends, having devoted the best efforts of her life to her profession, efficiently training the mental faculties of Texas students during the past twenty-five years. Nearly all of this period she has occupied the position of principal of female semi-
MRS. R. O. ROUNSAVALL.
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naries, and of one of the large public schools in Galveston. She came to this State in 1859, and will be remembered as Miss Hapgood, having taught during the war in Houston and Washington, and later in Galveston, where she was married, in 1867, to Mr. Henry J. Beebe, a wholesale merchant of New Orleans. After a brief residence in that city she returned to Galveston. The demise of her husband left to her care three young children : Inez F., who now follows her mother's voca- tion; Pauline, who died a month after her graduation, in 1890 ; and Dee, an artist.
MRS. R. O. ROUNSEVALL has distinct individuality, which stamps her as a woman of rare powers. With the capacity to adapt herself to circumstances, she quickly mas- ters any situation in which she is placed, and controls, rather than follows, the will of others. Her success as a musical director and as an educator is a proof of energies omnip- otence. For many years the Waco Female College was under her direct supervision, and this responsibility, as may well be imagined, entailed on Mrs. Rounsevall severe self-de- nial and unremitting exertions. Her position was adorned by the attractions that brighten and elevate society, and strengthened the influence of a college distinguished for the ability and scholarship of its instructors. Since resigning her duties as an educator, she has been solicited to devote her energies and labors to various institutions of learning. In resuming the hospitalities of her home, Mrs. Rounsevall has been liberal in her welcome to the lovers of art and liter- ature. Accustomed herself to these high and pure enjoy- ments, she has sought to give the same pleasure to others, and her entertainments have a more elevated character than those of fashion.
CHAPTER XXI. PHYSICIANS.
MISS MARGUERET HOLLAND-MISS JOSEPHINE KINGSLEY - MRS. FANNY LEAK-DR. GRACE DANFORTH.
MISS MARGUERET HOLLAND, M. D .- The medical profes- sion in Texas holds in its ranks many women of fine learning and conspicuous ability. Among these is Dr. Margueret Hol- land, of Houston, in which city she has, for more than twenty years, been actively engaged in the practice of her profession.
She is of Irish descent, and was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. In her infancy she was left an orphan, and adopted by Jacob Powell, with whom she was reared in the State of Illinois, and by whom her early education was pro- vided and directed. After a course of four years in the Woman's Medical College of the Northwestern University, at Chicago, she graduated with distinction, and at once em- barked upon her professional career.
As a general practitioner, DoctorHolland is called upon to mix with all classes, and is, consequently, well known among the people. By them she is held in high esteem, and by her patrons she is greatly revered for knowledge and skill in her calling. She enjoys the respect of her confréres, and with them holds frequent conferences and consultations in the in- terest of their common duties among the afflicted.
In her political acts and expressions, Doctor Holland evinces a penetrating interest in all that concerns the public welfare, yet she is not so blindly attached to partisan creed or ritual as not to see the errors of its friends or the merits of its opponents. In the gynecian sphere of politics, her views are, of course, fully abreast with those of the most enlight- ened leaders of her sex ; they are never, however, obtrusively
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