USA > Texas > Prominent women of Texas > Part 9
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On returning to Texas, the family settled in the village, now city, of Dallas, in July, 1871, where, on the 9th of June, 1873, their eldest son, Julius R., died. Pierre Mitchel, the second son, on November 17, 1872, in Rome, Georgia, mar- ried Miss Miranda Smith. He died in Dallas, May 19, 1876. There are three daughters yet living. Clara (Mrs. Thomas B. Mitchel) has four children, and lives in Dallas. The other two are Misses Lizzie C. and Marion T.
Mrs. Brown, after writing much in both prose and poetry, has compiled a "School History of Texas," now in its second revised edition, which has proved highly satisfactory as a standard work.
The fiftieth anniversary of the marriage of this honored couple was celebrated at their home in Dallas, on the 9th of July, 1893, and was in every respect touching and beautiful.
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Many were present who had known them from twenty-five to fifty years. Letters of congratulation were sent from Con- necticut, New York City, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois, and Mexico.
Mrs. Brown is a member of the General Society, Daughters of the Revolution, New York City ; and a member of the State Society of Texas. She has also been, for the past sixteen years, president of the Pearl Street Reading Circle. From the age of sixteen years Mrs. Brown has been a member of the Presbyterian Church.
MRS. FANNIE CHAMBERS GOOCH, now Mrs. D. T. Igle- hart, of Austin, became known to the literary world through her book, "Face to Face with the Mexicans." Her genius has probably not reached its maturity, yet she has won a distinguished rank in the world of letters and to her must be conceded an individuality strongly marked in the sphere of original thought. Her gifts, both of creation and ex- pression, are pronounced in their character and are harmo- niously combined for effective work; and if her circumstances in life were such as to compel the constant exercise of these gifts, her fame would be assured and polite literature glo- riously enriched. Mrs. Iglehart is a social genius, and many of her talents have been cut and polished to that end. She is blessed with a fine physique, a commanding presence, and subtle power, known as personal magnetism. In conversa- tion she has infinite tact and talent, and the faculty of bringing to the surface the best qualities of those who come within the radius of her influence. Although admirably accomplished, she has neither pretense nor pedantry, and moves with conscious ease in the parlors of the rich and the cottages of the poor, carrying with her the aroma of grace and sympathy. Her wit and repartee owes its sparkle to her Irish ancestry. Her great-grandfather was from a clan in Ireland, while from the maternal side she inherits the purity and lofty character of the Huguenot. Mrs. Iglehart is a native of Texas. Her book was the outcome of several years spent in Mexico, and contains an account of her own
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experiences in trying to keep house and live the ordinary life of an American woman among the unbending conservatisms of Mexican conditions. "Face to Face with the Mexicans " has passed through numerous editions, and gone into many lands in its purpose of throwing light upon Mexican life and character heretofore unknown. Mrs. Iglehart has received letters of the highest praise and appreciation from the most noted men, both in this country and Europe, and the book is popularly on sale in several foreign countries, and in not less than twenty foreign catalogues it is to be found among the most valuable historical works. Its author has been made a member of many of the leading historical and scien- tific associations of both Europe and America, and among them she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Science, Letters, and Art of London, England, and others of equal fame abroad, while at home the American Historical Associa- tion and other State organizations have her name on their rolls.
MRS. ELLA WILLMAN, of Houston, has high rank among Southern authors. Her stories are the result of composite culture, advanced thought and original methods. A splendor of diction and a wealth of coloring render her literary productions unrivaled in the field of fiction.
CHAPTER XVI.
MRS. V. O. KING .- A cheerful spirit, a bright mind, and a wealth ofvaried learning-all in unstinted store-are treas- ures that adorn the daily life of this distinguished lady. Thus endowed, the world that knows her must be better for the knowledge.
Reared in a luxurious home, where well-used competence refined the gifts it brought, where loving counsels led her infant feet, and where noiseless acts of Christian grace im- pressed her young, susceptive life, it but follows, as fruition follows flowers, that all her later sky should be tinted from the bow that arched the morning of her youth. And so it
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has been in the years that have followed. The graces that nestled with her in the cradle have been the companions of her womanhood.
Mrs. King was married at an early age to Dr. V. O. King, then a young physician just from the schools, and the two entered at once upon the untried scenes of youth and in- experience. The new home brought domestic joys, but the roughness of its surroundings gave little promise of social pleasure, while the doctor's frequent absence on his rounds of duty left the young wife to palliate her solitude as best she might. She took refuge in her books, and it was there she formed the plan of giving all her thought to solid, seri- ous, laborious mental work. Her husband's library guided her in her choice, and she chose the study of the Greek. In its pursuit she found the solace that she wanted, and she brought to bear upon her fascinating work a degree of en- thusiasm not often encountered in fields of purely literary adventure. Social and domestic duties only could draw her from her favorite books. She was sometimes diverted by little riots or street rencounters, in which the pocket artil- lery of that day and people furnished the arms, but she gradually grew insensible to the disturbance, unless, per- chance, a stray missile should shatter a glass, or whistle through an open door. More than once she has stood, pistol in hand, holding at bay a frenzied mob, while her hus- band was within extracting a ball from the body, or setting the fractured limb, of some pursued and wounded foe.
These scenes transpired before the war, and seem to have been preparing the people of that region for scenes of bloodier renown. On one occasion during this eventful period, the Northern troops, under General Banks, were in full retreat after their repulse at Pleasant Hill and Mansfield, and their route was through the village in which Mrs. King lived. Her husband was absent in the Southern army, her negro ser- vants had taken refuge among the invaders; camp-followers and stragglers were pillaging unprotected homes along the line of flight; and she was left alone with her infant daughter in her house to protect it, as best she could, against the
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intrusion of the spoiler. Hour after hour she stood, gun in hand, defying her aggressors. Her peril was at last reported to an officer, who gallantly came to her relief, applauded her courage, permitted her to retain her weapon, and placed at her disposal an efficient guard. This episode discloses a con- spicuous feature in Mrs. King's character; it further serves to illustrate the intrepidity that is born of conscious right, and that is unsullied by servility.
Interruptions like these did not lead Mrs. King away from the literary task that was before her. The years of the war, like those that preceded them, were traced by steady and unwearied steps toward the attainment of her simple pur- pose, and in the end she found herself-all unconscious of the honor-a victor worthy of the bays that crown a master's brow. The early text of the New Testament Scripture, the Iliad as it fell from Homer's lips, the story of the Peloponne- sian War as told by Thucydides, the dramas of Æschylus, of Sophocles and Euripides, the poems of Anacreon, the phi- losophy of Plato and Aristotle, and the Cyropædia and Anabasis of Xenophon-all in the vernacular of the ancient Greeks-were read and studied by her, and many of them translated into English. The Greek became to her a familiar tongue, but only as it was spoken twenty-five hundred years ago. A new ambition seized her; the modern or Romaic Greek must be acquired. The design was scarcely formed before events were so ordered as to favor its accomplish- ment. Her husband removed to New Orleans to practice his profession, where, very soon, he made the acquaintance of Father Gregorio, priest of the newly-organized Greek Church in that city. The Reverend gentleman was a scholarly man and deeply cultured in both the modern and the Hellenic literature of his country, but he knew not one word of English and he was thrown among people who knew not one word of Greek. When Mrs. King, therefore, proposed that he should become her teacher in the colloquial forms of his language, he was not loth to accept the charge. As the years went by, the interest of both pupil and preceptor daily grew with the progress they made, and when this rela-
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tion ceased they talked together in his native tongue as freely as Greek might discuss with Greek the school of Plato in the grove of Academus. Some years later Mrs. King visited Greece-a pilgrimage as full of zeal as that which takes the faithful to the prophet's tomb-and on her return she declared that while at Athens she felt as much at home as she could feel in any American town. Her only present exercise in the language that so early fascinated her life, is the reading of a Greek newspaper that makes its weekly visits to her home.
During Mrs. King's residence in New Orleans, she was a constant attendant at the meetings of the Academy of Sci- ences, where she became interested in the several sections of natural history, notably those of botany and entomology. To these she devoted her wonted energy, studying them es- pecially in their reciprocal and correlative aspect. Her sum- mer excursions to the North and West, and to Canada and the Lakes were made the occasions for observing plant and insect life in their natural homes, and for collecting valuable stores in the interest of her studies at home. Her researches in the valleys and tableland of Mexico also contributed to these accumulations. Her entomological studies resulted in the publication of papers that gave her high rank among the specialists of the country, and brought frequent requests for articles from leading scientific periodicals. As the result of her study of the phosphorescent insects, she was the first specialist to describe, by actual observation, all the phe- nomena in the life history of the Pleotomus Pallens Lec., which description appeared in a monograph printed in Psyche, then published at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The insect was captured, and its several forms of development, were observed, in the State of Texas, in which region alone it has been studied from the egg to the perfect animal, and by Mrs. King alone as the pioneer in this field. Her observa- tions were rewarded by the encomiums of scientists, and were announced in the Canadian Entomologist, by Professor Leconte, the leading authority in America on this subject. In 1886 Mrs. King presented her collection of insects to the
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Smithsonian Institution, since which time she has done no active work in entomology; she then accompanied her hus- band to the Republic of Colombia, to the government of which he was accredited under a federal commission.
The long journey up the Magdalena River and the slow ascent of the Andes Mountains, gave preliminary aids to the work that awaited Mrs. King upon the lofty summits in the plains of Bogota. Here the English is an unknown tongue, the French an accomplishment of the better classes, and the Spanish the only medium of intercourse among all the peo- ple. Mrs. King's thorough acquaintance with the French, added to some elementary knowledge of the Spanish gleaned in her visits to Mexico, soon enabled her to acquire the latter language, and press it into the service of her ever active, ever receptive, mind. She took delight in the literature of South America, in the story of her progress, and in the productions of her scholars. Among the latter she formed congenial friend- ships, and through them enjoyed privileges usually denied the stranger-not least of these was free access to well-filled libraries of native books. Being attracted by a charming original novel, entitled "Maria," written by a brilliant native author, she resolved to translate it for the enjoy- ment of the English-speaking world. This she accomplished, only to discover, however, that she had been anticipated by another, and the unpublished manuscript is still in her hands. She also translated many of the beautiful stories of Mme. Soledad Acosta de Sempere, the most gifted woman of her country.
Turning from these purely literary labors, Mrs. King again took the field of Natural History in search of new discoveries. She closely studied the records of the original researches of Caldas and of Mutis, and learned from them of regions and of secrets still unexplored around her. Thirsting for knowl- edge, she sought its fountains upon every hill-top, and in every valley. While in this pursuit she was led by the trend of her inquiries to investigate the cinchona tree, more important in its relations to man than any other growth found in the flora of the continental tropics. The result of
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this study was an elaborate and exhaustive treatise on the habit, growth, development, qualities, and varieties, of this interesting product of the South American forest.
When Mrs. King returned to the United States, laden with her spoils of new knowledge, she rested from the labors of her active life, and addressed herself to the task of arranging her literary stores preparatory to the serene enjoyment of the harvest she has reaped and of a happy retrospect of the fields in which she has labored. These pleasures bring glad- ness to her cottage home in the picturesque city of Austin, and they breathe into its daily life a spirit of contentment that is only born of a mind enriched with learning, chas- tened by experience, and touched by a charity that "rejoiceth in the truth." In this cheery and peaceful retirement she keenly enjoys the presence of her friends, though from it she has banished all the exacting cares of social life. She is at pres- ent a member of two learned societies, composed of Austin ladies distinguished for their attainments.
Mrs. King is a native of Louisiana, and her maiden name was Helen Selina Lewis. Her American ancestors came to this country early in the seventeenth century to escape oppression and find a home in the wilderness of the New World. Their descendants took divergent routes. A branch of these migrated to Virginia, where one of its sons married into the family of Washington. Another branch from which Mrs. King is descended went from Connecticut to the furthest South, and from this branch sprang Mrs. King's grand- father, who was territorial judge of Mississippi, and after- ward district judge of Louisiana.
Mrs. King has one daughter, the wife of Judge J. H. Mc- Leary, of San Antonio, who has richly inherited the bright- ness and cheerfulness of her mother, and both of them are blessed in Mrs. King's four grandchildren.
CHAPTER XVII.
MRS. BELL HUNT SHORTRIDGE-MRS. FLORENCE DUVAL WEST - MRS. M. E. M. DAVIS-MRS. MARY DANA SHINDLER.
MRS. BELL HUNT SHORTRIDGE, poet and novelist, was remarkable for her intellectual gifts and personal loveli- ness. Texas claimed Mrs. Shortridge with pride as one of its most talented daughters, though she had transplanted her energy and rare versatility to New York. Through contri- butions to Frank Leslie's, the Sun, the World, and other discriminative publications, she perceptibly broadened the scope of her influence. During her residence in the North she wrote several novels, among them "Held in Trust," and a book of poems entitled "Lone Star Lights." In this collec- tion the exquisite production, "Peach Blossoms," is perhaps the rarest gem in her literary casket, though much of her work achieved popularity and endeared her to Southern readers.
It is when we review her tribute to Texas, "land of her birth and soul's intensest love," "that we meet the writer face to face upon the fair and sunny fields of her own proper domain, and feel the magnetic sympathies of the woman." The request for "one heart's smile" of recognition from those of her own State was abundantly granted, for in Wise County, where she had lived, she enjoyed a popularity more like a princess in her hereditary province, in whom her people claimed a sort of ownership. Here one meets "Bell Hunts" who were named in her honor, and the black "mammy" who belonged to the old régime, who relates with pride her im- portant share in "Miss Bell's bringing up." Here the early settlers touchingly refer to her untimely demise and to her beauty, dwelling with something better than pride upon the traces of her influences. She longed to speak to the "per-
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sonal heart," and this homage is an assurance that the people were
"Not too busy, empire-building child, To loiter, dallying with her blossoms wild, And her pretty little heart songs."
MRS. FLORENCE DUVAL WEST .- Mrs. West was born September 1, 1840, in Tallahassee, Florida, of which State her paternal grandfather, William P. Duval, was Governor. In 1845 she came to Austin, Texas, with her father, Thomas H. Duval, who successfully practiced his profession of the law until 1857, when he was appointed United States Dis- trict Judge, filling the office with distinguished ability till his death. Two brothers of Judge Duval have also been con- spicuous in Texas history, B. C. Duval and John C. Duval. Both were in Fannin's army at the time of the brutal massa- cre on the memorable Palm Sunday of 1836, and both were led out to face the murderous fusillade. The former was instantly killed; the latter fell wounded and subsequently escaped, and in later life wrote entertaining sketches of his frontier experiences.
At the age of nineteen, on her birthday, Mrs. West was mar- ried to Charles S. West, a talented young lawyer of the Aus- tin bar, who won renown in his profession, filled a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of Texas, resigned on account of ill health, and died October 20, 1885, surviving his wife nearly four years, she having died November 22, 1881. There were four children born in this marriage-a girl who died in infancy, and three sons, all of whom still survive, Robert G. West, Duval West and William S. West, named in the order of their ages. The eldest two have adopted the profession of their father, in which they give promise of early and signal distinction.
The conditions surrounding the childhood of Mrs. West early developed the qualities that dawned upon her preco- cious life. In a home nestled among the hills of the most picturesque of scenes, shaded by trees of perpetual verdure, lulled by the murmur of waters in perennial flow, adorned with flowers that hung from every vine, peeped from every
P. W. of T .- 8
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crevice, enlivened by music from feathered songsters on every branch, she learned to love the native blooms, and carol with the native birds. Here the first notes of her unformed voice gave notice of its future conquests. The poet President of the Republic, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the frequent guest of the child's charming home, was here entranced by the lisping melody of the little "Peri," and embalmed it in incense as pure as the warblings it echoes. He sang of the soft in- fluence that awakened her throat; of the
"Sweet music that is heard in the bowers,
The laughter that is sent from the rills;"
he pictured her spirit as "drinking the song ;" he painted her eyes as weeping "at the notes as they fall;" he sang of the wedlock of "genius and feeling ;" he gave to her life his best benediction :
"Oh, long may the Peri bloom on, Still ever in gladness and love, And blend with her genius for song The feeling's that light us above. " That life may be lengthened and blest, And sorrow may never enthrall, Must still be the prayer of each breast For fair little Florence Duval."
And thus, at six years of age, prophecy hung upon the lips of the child and modestly predicted the triumphs of the woman. As age advanced her powers grew, and in the ma- turity of her years gave pleasures without stint in home and social life, both in colloquy and song.
Mrs. West was no less endowed in richness of fancy than in richness of voice, and nature in her seemed to delight in the exuberance of her gifts. Her poetic compositions are numer- ous and always touching. She wrote as easily as one who plays with literature, and her unstrained verses have often the graceful negligence of Horace. In "The Marble Lily, and Other Poems," as well as in her prose sketches embodied in "The Land of the Lotus Eaters," are found passages of exquisite touch and of irresistible pathos. In them glows the sympathy that abounded in her life, that makes manifest
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the sorrow so keenly felt at her death, and in them are em- bedded the sentiments of love that have builded up the monument of affection to her memory.
MRS. M. E. M. DAVIS .- The father of Mrs. Davis was John Moore, a native of Massachusetts, and she was born in Alabama, from which State she was brought in her infancy by her parents to Texas, and by them reared in Hays County on the picturesque banks of the San Marcos River. There in the midst of enchanting scenery, under the witchery that lurks in soft shadows, and splashes in cool waters, her budding genius dwelt in a state conducive to its growth. It mellowed with nature's other forces, and before even the season of childhood had passed it had ripened into power. At nine years of age she wrote a little poem, and so delighted were her parents at the promise it gave, that they forthwith began her education and development. At four- teen appeared her first published verses, and from that age to the present time she has regularly written for the press and other periodicals. In 1868, she collected her pieces in her first published volume entitled "Mending the Gap, and Other Poems," and, at intervals of two years each, pub- lished two other editions of the same, both greatly improved and enlarged. Among the best known and most admired of Mrs. Davis' short poems are "Going Out and Coming In," "San Marcos River," "Stealing Roses Through the Gate," "Père Dagobert," "Throwing the Wanda," "Lee at the Wil- derness," and a few others found in most collections of Amer- ican verse. A critic said of her a few years ago that she was "more thoroughly Texan in subject, in imagery and spirit than any of the Texas poets," and that scarcely any other than a native Texan could "appreciate all the merits of her poems, so strongly marked are they by the peculiarities of Texas scenery and patriotism."
As a prose writer Mrs. Davis attracts as many readers and as much admiration as when she indulges in her delight- ful verses. Her short stories, such as "The Song of the Opal," " The Soul of Rose Dede,"" A Miracle," have been flatteringly
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received, and a volume of Sketches entitled "In War Times at La Rose Blanche," has elicited such commenda- tions from the press as to call for a French translation for the columns of La Revue des Deux Mondes. Her recent novel "Under the Man-Fig," is described by a late reviewer as "a tale at once strongly dramatic, clean and artistic," while her work generally is described by the same writer as being "characterized by a keen sense of humor, a fine restrained pathos and a delicate play of fancy."
Mrs. Davis was married in 1874 to Mr. T. E. Davis, for many years interested in the Houston Telegram, and now connected with the Picayune of New Orleans, in which city they live, and where Mrs. Davis is remarked in intellectual centers as a most interesting literary personality.
MRS. MARY DANA SHINDLER, one of the most famous writers of her day, came to Texas in 1865, with her second husband, the Rev. Robert D. Shindler. Her first husband was Charles E. Dana, of New York. Her earliest book was a volume of poems called "The Southern Harp." This was followed by "The Northern Harp," "The Parted," "Young Sailor," and "Forecastle Tom." Her husband died at Nacogdoches, 1874, and two years later she published a book on spiritual phenomena. During a temporary residence in Memphis, she edited The Voice of Truth, a journal de- voted to the interests of spiritualism and reform. Mrs. Shindler was the daughter of Rev. Benjamin M. Palmer. She was born in South Carolina in 1810, and died at Nacogdo- ches in 1883.
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