USA > Texas > Prominent women of Texas > Part 12
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MARGUERET HOLLAND, M. D.
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expressed, nor does she believe that female suffrage and its concomitant power will alone bring back the Eden from which our parents were driven.
MISS JOSEPHINE KINGSLEY entered the medical school of the University of Michigan in the first class of female students ever admitted to that department. She graduated in 1873, and, after a brief visit in the East, began the practice of med- icine in Detroit. Here her skill as a practitioner brought her immediate and desirable recognition. In 1878, she located in San Antonio, where she is well and favorably known as a progressive physician. Doctor Kingsley is devoted to her chosen field of labor, and is a faithful and strong advocate of the progressive work of her own sex in every branch of science and art. Having been brought in contact with suffering, and studied its alleviation, her thought has broadened into the subjects that engage philanthropists, while her conversation is tinctured with an interesting knowledge of life's phases and problems. She is a native of Michigan, was born in the County of Chautauqua, famed for the beauty of its scenery. Her girlhood was spent in sight of Lake Erie and near Lake Chautauqua, though San Antonio is now the home of her heart and the field of her useful labors.
DR. FANNY LEAK, who is especially interested in the tem- perance cause, is one of the finest specimens of womanhood among our "Prominent Women of Texas." That she is as quick witted and intelligent as she is attractive may be judged from the ready answer she once gave a bald-headed gentleman who was betrayed by his admiration into a frank compliment of her personality. She replied :
"Sir, there must be truth in what you say, since there is not a hair's breadth between your head and heaven."
On another occasion, at a Medical Association, a lady friend, an M.D., was introduced by a masculine M. D. as Mrs. .. Doctor Leak soon found an opportunity to intro- duce this gentleman to the Association, and with perfect good humor, prefixed the title of "Mrs." to his name.
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Dr. Fanny Leak exhibits bright intellect, professional abil- ity and feminine force of character. She was born in Bath County, Kentucky. Her parentage on both sides was of old colonial Virginia stock, her mother being an Elliott, of that family who bore the Elliott coat of arms of England, but whose patriotism and devotion to the cause of liberty was proved by a loan of $300,000 to the colonial government to aid in the struggle against the aggressions of the mother country. Her great grandfather on the paternal side was Maj. Jesse Daniel, who served under General Jackson in the War of 1812.
Doctor Leak, though proud of her Kentucky birth and pre-revolutionary lineage, is prouder still of the State upon whose soil she has been reared, and where she has been edu- cated, at Baylor University. She was a graduate in medi- cine, in 1887, from The Woman's Medical College of Chicago, a department of the Northwestern University of that city. She has been eminently successful as a practitioner, and is frequently called in consultation with the most prominent regular physicians.
Her home in Austin is one of the material results of her professional labors. There she lives and finds her reward in the society of her four lovely daughters and a large circle of appreciative friends.
DR. GRACE DANFORTH was widely known and one of the most capable physicians in the South. She was a graduate of the Woman's Medical College of Chicago, and was ap- pointed assistant physician in the Lunatic Asylum at Terrell, the first appointment of a woman to such a position by the Legislature of Texas. A writer of conspicuous ability, her valuable contributions-scientific and social-added to her prestige. She labored untiringly for the advancement of her sex, and for the interest of humanity. In the zenith of her mental power she died from hemorrhage of the brain
" Rich in the world's opinion, and men's praise, And full of all we could desire, but years."
MRS. KATE DE PELCHIN.
CHAPTER XXII.
MRS. KATE DE PELCHIN - MOTHER ST. PIERRE.
MRS. KATE DE PELCHIN was a sister of charity without veiled or votive declaration of the fact. Her sainted life of sixty-two years was spent in faithful, heroic service for others, and suffering mortals knew no kinder ministrations than she brought to the pillow of pain. Having been trained to literary pursuits, as well as being a skillful musician, she chose the greater privilege to preside where pain wept its requiems, to evoke the divine harmonies: sympathy, solace, consolation. This was nobly demonstrated when her devo- tion illuminated the dark years when the yellow fever and smallpox held ghastly carnival in the city of Houston. She then became a faithful and successful nurse, toiling with un- tiring zeal during that long period of suffering; and when, at last, the pall of affliction was lifted, she found her true voca- tion in the Stuart and Boyles Infirmary, where she labored four years.
In 1878, when, again, "With soundless tread, the fearful pestilence, the fever, saffron-eyed, came forth again," and the city of Memphis was a vast morgue, this accomplished and devoted woman was one of the first to respond to the appeal for physicians and nurses, watching by the sick and the dying wherever she found a victim or was called to a post of duty; neither failing nor faltering on her sublime way.
Returning to Houston, she resumed her duties at the Infirm- ary until 1888, when she was elected matron of the Bayland Orphans' Home. A year later she made a modest beginning, that ended in an established institution where infants and young children of the city could be cared for. Thischarity is non-sectarian, and its founder christened it "Faith Home,"
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because, as she wrote: "I have faith, and God and the good people to help."
Again, Mrs. De Pelchin says, in one of her published let- ters : "I have been a matron of Bayland Home four years, and each day I am more impressed with the benefits such a home confers on lone and desolate children. Let us raise our own missionaries. When you send Bishop Key what he wishes for Japan, build an orphanage."
Her recent death caused mourning throughout Houston. Memorial services were held in all the leading churches; places of business were closed; while the Press called attention to her life, and issued a call for a mass meeting. It was then proposed that the cities of Houston and Memphis combine, and erect a statue to her memory, as New Orleans had erected to "Marguerite," the friend of poor children.
After mature deliberation, it was decided, as more consist- ent with her own unselfish character, to erect a building to be known as "Faith Home," and thus perpetuate her noble example by carrying out her own work.
Many richly endowed colleges and charitable institutions attest the generosity of the wealthy; but this woman, like one of old, gave her all and herself to the work of establish- ing a home where the little children of the poor could be gathered in from the streets to a better life, to found this tender charity in the midst of a wealthy city.
Everyone there, and in many other places, knew of her kindly ministrations, of her many deeds of self-sacrifice, with which she helped to swell the sum of sublime achievement.
MOTHER ST. PIERRE, known in early life as Miss Margaret Harrington, was remarkable for her sound judgment and clear intellect. Her patience was tempered as Ebrons steel; she was free from ambition, and great of soul. Bred of tender- ness and dowered with grace, she was beautiful with a loveli- ness that combined all of the woman and all of the angel- beauty which would have made Petrarch sing, and Dante kneel; for hers was the beauty of boundless beneficence. When the soldiers' graves are decorated in Galveston a detachment
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wreathes the grave of Mother St. Pierre with flowers, and the News explains "that while she was not a soldier in the com- mon acceptation of the term, she was one of those ministering angels to whom the soldiers look in times of war, a Sister of Charity, who was in charge of the hospital here." It was in 1861 when General Magruder was at a loss how to care for his sick and wounded soldiers, that he appealed through a chosen deputation to Mother St. Pierre, who may be justly regarded as the second foundress of the Ursuline convent at Galveston. She generously responded by placing at his dis- posal the boarding school department of the convent, which was in consequence termed "The Confederate Hospital." The good Mother and her devoted Ursuline daughters had thus a new vocation, as it were, thrust upon them by the sad con- sequences of war; and their devotedness in this new field of action won for them the sweet title of "Sisters of Charity." When sickness comes, a man is shorn of pleasure, and becomes the sport of dreams, shadows, deliriums. Through his suffer- ings he often clings to life, hardly conscious of existence, the tide of thought so low that he no longer belongs to the world of creeds. This was the condition of Lieut. Sidney Sher- man, of Cook's regiment, who breathed his last supported by Mother St. Pierre's arms. Many other soldiers wounded at war, at last at war with themselves, and wretched, were sick, sick to the heart of life, until the Mother's ministration lulled them into dreamful slumbers from which they awoke to the consciousness of her skillful, tender care. Losing sight of their weariness to take the soothing draught from her hand and seeing her white coifed face during the broken visions that came in sleep, they drifted into convalescence where even the air seemed saturated with love and returning life, where the sweet sense of rest and comfort proclaimed the prodigality of the inexhaustible-where patient Mother St. Pierre possessing not a sovereign became the millionaire of good deeds.
W. of T .- 10
CHAPTER XXIII. TEMPERANCE LEADERS.
MRS. HELEN M. STODDARD-MRS. ELIZABETH TURNER FRY- MRS. SARAH C. ACHESON.
MRS. HELEN M. STODDARD .- The cause of temperance has, in the person of Mrs. Stoddard, an earnest, a constant and an efficient worker. She and her co-laborers, not only in Texas but throughout the Christian world, are apostles of the purest inspiration, teachers as faithful in the field of their work as were the Rechabites in the practice of their daily life. "Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever," was the commandment of Rechab to his people, and they were obedient, even when tempted with the cup by the prophet of God. A newer commandment, and a more sacred one, enjoins "temperance" as one of the sublime virtues- akin to "godliness," to "faith," to "charity." Under the white banner of this later law the humblest followers of tem- perance reform are leaders in the crusade for the recovery of Christendom from the dominion of vice, and their army is marching in the van of civilization, every private a paladin, every paladin a hero.
Mrs. Stoddard graduated from the Genesee Wesleyan Semi- nary of New York, in 1871, and two years later was married to S. D. Stoddard. She moved with her husband to Nebraska, where, after a residence of four years, his health failed, neces- sitating removal to a softer climate. Together they pro- ceeded to Florida, where within a year he died. Two sons were born of this union, of whom one lives-a promising youth- to comfort the life of his devoted mother.
With Mrs. Stoddard's return to her home in Nebraska, began the active and toilsome season of her life. She took a position as teacher in the Nebraska Conference Seminary,
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which she filled for two years, then moved southward to Texas. In the latter State she taught ten years, of which six were passed in the Fort Worth University. While there she was called to the presidency of the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union of Texas. This was in 1891, and she has been since then successively reelected at each annual meeting of the union. With a fervor ever renewed in the furnace of her consuming zeal, she has carried light and warmth into every corner of her allotted sphere. She has lectured and pleaded and preached at all times and in all parts of the State, and has recruited and organized some of the strongest forces in the army of reform. She has represented the union at National conventions, and has been twice a delegate to world conventions. At the meeting in London and at the Grindelwald conferences in Switzerland and France she was conspicuous, not only for her general ability but for her loyalty to the section she represented, and for the forceful manner in which she presented it to the favor of her listeners. To Mrs. Stoddard is also due the praise of being largely instrumental in securing the enactment of the law making scientific temperance instruction a part of the public school curriculum of the State. In connection with this achieve- ment in legislation may be mentioned another, quite as salutary in its results and infinitely more affecting in regard to the helplessness of the victims to be rescued. This was the amendment of the law to protect the purity of little girls, whereby the age of consent was raised from twelve to fifteen years. In behalf of this measure Mrs. Stoddard gave the best powers of her mind and her uninterrupted presence near the legislature until its full and final passage.
Mrs. Stoddard holds opinions with a strength of convic- tion, and utters them with a force of expression that gives to her an interesting personality in almost every possible train of thought. She is a communicant in the Methodist Church and, for many years, has taught classes in its Sunday Schools. She entertains well-considered views on all ethical questions, and is strongly imbued with the privileges and responsibilities of her sex in their relation to the social and
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political duties entailed upon all the race alike. Her strug- gles for survival in the daily contests of life were inspired by a native self-assertion capable of unlimited endurance and opposition. These, combined with her experience and her knowledge of human nature, have developed in her the energy of character and quickness of apprehension that have distinguished her among the foremost women of her age.
MRS. ELIZABETH TURNER FRY was born in Trenton, Ten- nessee, on December 22, 1842. Came to Texas in 1852 with her parents, who settled in Bastrop. In 1861 she met Lieut. A. J. Fry, married him a year later and moved to Seguin. In a few years they accumulated ample means, and with a family of three sons and one daughter, located permanently in San Antonio, where Mrs. Fry occupies a prominent posi- tion in religious and philanthropic work. Her energy, com- bined with self-command, tact, and mental endurance, places her in the front rank as a successful organizer in every pro- gressive, liberal field. The indispensable aggressive force and "staying power" she possesses, with the courage of her con- victions to a marked degree, yet, the simple dignity of her Christian character serves to retain the regard, respect and confidence of those who differ materially with her in opinion. During the Prohibition campaign in Texas in 1887, Mrs. Fry, by her pluck, ready utterances, brave position, pecuniary aid and personal sacrifice in defense of those principles, forged a way to public and general admiration. The influence she used in the city of San Antonio opposing that debasing pub- lic sport, a bullfight on Sunday, was effectual. Floating flyers were wafted into every door to influence the minds of their occupants. They were addressed to "all mothers" and emphasized the wickedness and degenerating tendencies of such displays, which awakened citizens to the need of sup- pressing them. The bullfight failed to materialize, and since that date none has ever occurred in San Antonio. With wealth to use freely, Mrs. Fry has displayed a helpful spirit, and is ever ready to aid merit or need. As a prominent member of ten benevolent societies she has kept up a vast
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correspondence. Yet these duties have never defrauded her family of her thoughtful care. She has won admiration by the results attained in the conduct of her children. Mr. Fry died the 23d of September, 1892, and this irreparable loss, which produced great changes in her financial condition, com- pelled her to bring into practice the undeveloped, yet inherent qualities of self-reliance. Mrs. Fry has adopted the principles and guidance of the Christian Church, and was instrumental in 1883 in building the first Missionary Christian Church in San Antonio. She contributed to its erection, organized the Sunday School, called a convention of women in 1886 or 1887 in Trinity M. E. Church (where the W. C. T. U. meets), Mrs. M. R. Wells of Tennessee, being invited to be present. Although not a suffragist, yet Mrs. Fry advocated those ideas; and the labor this effort entailed, with the opposition she met from the pastor of the church, forced her to take a decided position in a letter printed in the columns of the San Antonio Express. This firmness bore its fruit in a very suc- cessful three days' convention, and was the initiatory step to organization. Mrs. Fry held the office of State Superin- tendent of Franchise for eight years, and has been the chair- man of Central committee during the past year. She was vice president of the board of Texas for the World's Exposi- tion, and president of the local board, also vice president of the Queen Isabella board of the 10th district of Texas. She was appointed as delegate to the national convention of the W. C. T. U. in Boston, in 1891. As chairman of the Central committee of the Equal Rights Association of the State of Texas, her work has been faithfully performed. She attended three political conventions at Dallas, Waco, and another near Taylor, asking that a suffrage plank be placed in their platform. The Equal Rights club meet in her parlor weekly, and she as president keeps the topics of interest to women before the organization. As a charter member of the Protes- tant Orphans' Home, she helped in its organization. In April, 1895, a committee was appointed to organize a home for friendless girls and women in San Antonio. It has been incorporated, and Mrs. Fry is one of the charter members.
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Her influence will be given to assist this commendable in- terest in every way possible, and it will enjoy the benefit of her wise counsel. Thus her benevolent and Christian im- pulses are finding full scope.
MRS. SARAH C. ACHESON. - Mrs. Acheson was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of February, 1844, and was there married at the age of nineteen to Captain Acheson, of the same town. This event took place during the late Civil War, while the Captain was at home on sur- geon's leave, at which time he was attached to the staff of General Miles, of the Federal army. In 1872 Captain and Mrs. Acheson moved to Texas.
She is descended, through her father, from an English and Dutch ancestry that immigrated to Virginia in 1600, and, through her mother, from Col. George Morgan, Superintend- ent of Indian Affairs, under Washington. It was by this officer that Jefferson was first informed of the "mad proj- ect " of Aaron Burr, which early information is referred to by Jefferson in a letter now in possession of Mrs. Acheson. Among other distinguished progenitors of the Revolutionary period she can point, with ancestral pride, to Col. William Duane, the patriot editor of the Philadelphia Aurora.
Mrs. Acheson's home is in the thriving town of Denison, where she is greatly revered for her active benevolence and her earnest advocacy of social reform. The fame of her "good works" is not, however, bounded by the narrow limits of her town. The field of her endeavor is coextensive with the field of human suffering within her reach. When the little village of Savoy, in a neighboring county, was swept by a tornado, that will be long remembered in that region, she was among the first to reach the scene of wretched- ness and desolation, and she lingered near the ruins until the dead and the wounded, and the hungry, and the houseless, were given every Christian care. She labored for the love of humanity ; her reward was the abiding memory of a "good work." Instances like this might be multiplied, but this will suffice to illustrate the manner of her work. Like the chari-
MRS. HELEN M. STODDARD.
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table man of Samaria, her philanthropy discerns neither creed nor condition. While the priest and the Levite may pass a fallen sufferer on the wayside she stops to bind up his wounds, be he sinner or alien, and she shelters and feeds him that he perish not in his misery. This is the religion taught by the Master-the religion practiced by all His disciples.
Mrs. Acheson has given three years of active service to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and during one presi- dential term was the presiding officer in Texas.
To ameliorate the condition of mankind, to encourage and stimulate reform, to promote the best methods for the advancement of civilization, and to abate human sufferingin every sphere of life, are the subjects that seem to fill her daily thought and study, and to the contemplation of these subjects she brings a mind matured by reflection, and a heart filled with a desire to be "fruitful in every good work."
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CHAPTER XXIV.
MRS. M. K. CRAIG-MRS. A. C. HARRISON-MRS. ANNA DIAL HEARNE.
MRS. MARY KITRELL CRAIG was born in Mississippi. She is a descendant of the Normans and McLeods, and her an- cestors have all been Southern men and women. In 1860 she graduated at the Wilcox Female Institute, in Camden, Mississippi, and made her début when the American sky grew dark with the coming storm. The war brought many ex- periences that were trying without precedent, and this period of severe trial moulded her character and developed her mind. It was then she began her career as an educator. She has taught for thirty-six years and numbers among her pupils men and women of families, and is teaching, like Old Nestor, the third generation. The secretary of State of Ala- bama, and a former minister of Westminster Presbyterian Church of Dallas, the president of the Capitol Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia, and other teachers and ministers are
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among her former pupils. For five years she was president of the Synodical Female Institute at Taladega, Alabama. One year she taught literature in the Oxford Male and Female College in Alabama, one year in Fort Worth, Texas, and a number of years in Dallas. During this period she has been a progressive student-studied in Chicago, New York, and with Dr. Rolfe the noted Shakesperean scholar of Cam- bridge. She now has the chair of English in the Mary Connor College, Paris, Texas.
Mrs.Craig was elected to represent Dallas at the Woman's Congress at the World's Exposition, Chicago, and read a paper on "The Evolution of American Literature." She has also written for the Arena and other magazines. She is literary director of two clubs in Dallas, and two in Paris, Texas, and in this field has achieved great success. Her presence is an inspiration. She has dignity and elegance of manner. Mrs. Craig was married in 1867, and has been a widow for a number of years. She has one daughter, Mrs. Ferris, who is a gifted musician, and one son, who is a phar- macist in Dallas.
MRS. A. C. HARRISON .- Mrs. Harrison bore the pretty maiden name of Kate Montgomery, and is a descendant of the Montgomery mentioned by MacAuley, who came to Maryland with Lord Baltimore. She was born in Westmore- land County, Virginia, notable as the birthplace of Washing- ton, Madison, Monroe, and Lee. Reared among literary traditions she received such thorough educational advan- tages at Staunton, Virginia, as became the basis for the serious study to which she has devoted herself. A close reader of the best books and current literature, she keeps in touch with the most advanced thought of the day. Such associations enriched her vocabulary, and, unlike many writers, she is an easy and brilliant conversationalist. Mrs. Harrison has written numerous poems and papers-the latter give special evidence of talent and superior culture. The Frank Leslie Publishing Company has accepted some of this gifted lady's work.
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It is pleasing to note that an "Essay on Hamlet," by Mrs. Harrison, was recently read before the Boston Home Culture Club. The implied compliment is the more gratifying from the fact that it was the only essay read from corre- spondents, and when a Texas essay is read to a Boston culture club, it becomes a significant acknowledgement of merit. The Lone Star State and Sherman, which has been Mrs. Harrison's home for a number of years, are to be con- gratulated upon this achievement. Mrs. Harrison is an Episcopalian and has been prominently identified with church as well as club work.
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