Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/626

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
621
ROLLINS.
ROLLSTON.

became the wife of Daniel M. Rollins, of New York City. They have one son. Mrs. Rollins has traveled much in Europe, Brazil, Alaska and the United States. For seven years from its commencement she contributed reviews every week to the New York "Critic." She has been a frequent contributor to the " Christian Union," the "Independent," "Lippincott's Magazine," the "Century," the "North American Review," the "Cosmopolitan Magazine," the "Forum," "St Nicholas," "Wide Awake" and "Harper's Young People," "Bazar," "Weekly" and "Magazine." Her published books are: "The Ring of Amethyst," poems (New York. 1878); "The Story of a Ranch" (1885); "All Sorts of Children" (1886); "The Three Tetons" (1887) and "From Palm to Glacier." Her essays on tenement-house life in New York City are crystallized in the form of a novel, "Uncle Tom's Tenement" She has read papers on that subject before various societies and clubs, and has done much to show up the evils of the tenement system in New York City. Her home is a center of culture and refinement.


ROLLSTON, Mrs. Adelaide Day, poet and author, was born near Paducah, Ky. Her earliest years were spent in the country, in the midst of a ADELAIDE DAY ROLLSTON. landscape of quiet, pastoral beauty. Her father was a physician of good standing. At the age of twelve years her talent for writing verse began to manifest itself in brief poems published in the local press. Later, several appeared in the defunct "Saturday Star-Journal," of New York. She was educated in St Mary's Academy, in Paducah, to which city her parents had removed when she was twelve years old, and where she still lives. After the conclusion of her school-life she continued her contributions to the neighboring press, and frequently verses over her name appeared in the "Courier-Journal" of Louisville. They attracted little or no attention, until she found a friend and helper in the veteran of the Kentucky press, Col. H. M. McCarty, who blamed when necessary and gave praise when praise was due. Still, her path upward has been one of stem struggle. "I could not explain to you, or any one else," says she, "just what difficulties I have had to fight against." In 1877 she began to contribute to the "Current," and since then she has won wide recognition as a contributor to "Once a Week," "Youth's Companion," "Godey's Lady's Book" and other eastern periodicals of high standing. She has also written several novelettes.


ROSE, Mrs. Ellen Alida, practical agriculturist and woman suffragist, born in Champion, N. Y., 17th June, 1843. She is the youngest daughter of John C. and Lumeda Fowler Rudd. She is of English descent. The district school, with a few terms in the village academy, furnished her education. On 5th December, 1861, she became the wife of Alfred Rose. In 1862 they moved to Wisconsin, where her life has been spent on a farm near Brodhead. Associated with her husband in an equal partnership, that accorded to her that justice and recognition which is not secured by the laws of the land, she has lived and worked with him in a companionship which is seldom seen in homes that are founded on the idea of masculine supremacy. They have one child, a daughter, who has become quite well known as an artist In conjunction with her husband, Mrs. Rose oversees all the work of the farm and takes a part in all. She is a careful, conservative, successful farmer, and in her life vindicates woman's right to labor. She is also a reader, thinker and reformer. She takes notes of every bill that passes the legislature, and watches every act of Congress. Her reform work has been chiefly in connection with the Woman Suffrage Association, and in the ranks of the Labor party. Both causes have found in her an efficient worker and an able speaker. As a farmer, she saw at an early day the great wrong done to the laboring classes by the present financial system, and was led to associate herself with those who were seeking the emancipation of labor. In 1873, near her home in Brodhead, she joined the Grange, and for seventeen years was an active member of that organization, holding many offices, among them county secretary and a member of the State committee on woman's work. As a result of her efforts, assisted by two or three other members, a Grange store was organized, which has been in successful operation many years and saved to the farmers of Green county many thousands of dollars. In 1888, when speculation in wheat produced hard times, Mrs. Rose prepared and presented to her Grange the following resolutions: "Whereas, our boards of trade have become mere pool- rooms for the enrichment of their members, and whereas, by their manipulations of the markets they unsettle the values and nullify the law of supply and demand, so that producers do not receive legitimate prices for what they produce; and, whereas, by 'cornering' the markets they are enabled to force up the prices of the necessaries of life, to the great distress and often starvation of the poor; therefore, resolved, that we demand immediate action by Congress, and the passage of such laws as shall forever prohibit gambling in the necessaries of life." Those resolutions have remained the best statement yet formulated of the demand of the Labor party. They were unanimously adopted and forwarded through county and State Granges to the National Grange, where they were adopted and placed in the hands of the legislative committee of the Grange in Washington, where they have been urged upon Congress with such force that the