Mrs. Murray is a life member of the New England Women's Club, of the Boston Browning Society, the Boston Business League, and the Boston Women's Press Club.
BERTHA VELLA BORDEN, a recognized and efficient leader in Sunday-school work, for nine years previous to her marriage the Primary Secretary of the Massachusetts Interdenominational Sunday-school Association, is a native of Lynn, being the eldest of the five children born to Joseph Franklin and Emma Frances Vella, both natives of this State.
Her father, Joseph Franklin Vella, of English and French descent, died in 1899. He was known throughout the city of Lynn as a business man of sterling integrity, greatheartedness, faithfulness, and charity, being a thorough Christian gentleman.
Her mother, Mrs. Emma Frances Vella, of English and Scotch descent, a woman of energy, kindliness, and piety, is still living, in Lynn.
In 1877, after completing her course of study in the excellent public schools of Lynn, Bertha Vella entered upon a thorough training for the work of a teacher in the State Normal School at Salem. Here she displayed such unusual aptness for object teaching that, although the youngest member of her class, she was chosen by her instructor to represent that part of the graduation exercises in June, 1879.
Two years of successful teaching followed in historic, classic Concord, and then, to the great regret of the Concord School Board, she accepted an appointment to teach in her home city, where later she became the honored and beloved principal of one of its largest primary schools, and developed remarkable tact in controlling and interesting the children under her care.
It was in the Sunday-school connected with the Lynn Common Methodist Episcopal Church that she had begun her work as a teacher at the age of fifteen, at the age of sixteen being elected superintendent of its Primary Department. She resigned this position when in Concord, but after she returned to Lynn was annually re-elected until her resignation at the close of 1900. She reorganized this department into Kindergarten, Primary, and Junior Departments, and supervised the teaching of the two hundred and forty-five pupils.
Richly endowed with strong intellectual powers, possessed of deep religious experience and remarkable teaching abilities, while thus earnestly devoting herself to her duties in Sunday-school and day school she was, unconsciously, fitting herself for a wider field of usefulness. In 1892 she received a call which appealed to her as a divine vocation, not to be resisted. She accordingly resigned her position as principal of the Lynn Primary School, and under the direction of Mr. William N. Hartshorn, of Boston, recently elected chairman of the International Executive Committee of Sunday-school Work, became the Primary Secretary of the Massachusetts Inter-denominational Sunday-school Association, being the first woman in the United States elected as an acting State Primary Secretary. In this office Miss Vella displayed good abilities as a public speaker, clearness and helpfulness as a writer, and genius as an organizer.
In her public addresses she aroused, captivated, and held her audiences, often stirring them to profound gratitude toward God for his love, and sincere determinations to utilize to the best of their abilities their opportunities to teach his truths to their children. Her influence over children she taught seemed irresistible. The irrepressible were checked, the listless aroused, all became absorbed in her words and spiritual pictures. She made the Bible to the little ones a perfect delight; to their seniors, a new revelation from God; to all, the love of Christ a living reality and the desire to serve him controlling.
She was a potent factor in organizing the evangelical Sunday-schools of Massachusetts into district associations that hold annual conventions and other gatherings, unifying, harmonizing, and intensifying all the vital interests of the Sunday-schools of Massachusetts. She also organized and supervised the work of thirty-five primary teachers' unions, taught weekly the Boston Primary Union, and superintended her own primary Sunday-school in
