home to make the lives of those most dear to her—an aged and feeble mother and an infirm sister—as pleasant and happy as unwearied attention and fidelity could effect.
The ancient homestead, standing apart from the village in a wide field, with its avenue shaded by evergreens, its scattered apple-trees tough and gnarled with age, and its old oaken bucket hanging in the well by the kitchen door, was rejuvenated without, and the house brightened and adorned within. The aged mother, now quite weak and helpless in body, was the centre of interest and the light of the home, while with faculties unimpaired, cheerful and bright as in the earlier days, she enjoyed the society of her numerous friends and the evening readings, with their pastor, the Rev. H. F. Harding, as their guest, in which Browning was the favorite author.
When the change came and the light of the household was extinguished, Mrs. Hoyt returned to Boston, made her a permanent home there, and resumed her work in a much enlarged sphere of public functions and responsibilities. She was appointed special commissioner by Governor Wolcott. Being interested in working for the soldi(M-s and soldiers' widows, she applied to the Pension Bureau in Washington for authority to tlo all pension work, and, being able to fulfil all the requirements, was soon appointed pension attorney, an office granted to very few women. In this work Mrs. Hoyt is able to give cheer and comfort to many widows' hearts. From the aged and helpless, applications come to her with the preface, " I appeal to you because you are a woman, knowing I shall have your .sympathy"; and they are sure to have it and, oftentimes, advice and assistance without remuneration.
At the request of several owners of property, Mrs. Hoyt added to her vocations that of real estate. In this enterprise she has been very successful in .securing the confidence and respect of all with whom she comes in contact. She has the entire charge of the property, handling it with skill. She is also working for a publishing company, and is correspondent for several papers. Mrs. Hoyt loses no opportunity to aid in any movement for justice to women, sometimes by a petition to the Legislature originated by herself, as in the present year, sometimes in a more quiet way, but always with the one object in view, of l)ringing women to the position they should occupy, to be determined by personal ability. Although her hands are very full, she finds time for not only doing charitable work, but for interesting others in large philanthropies. Through her business she is enabled to call the attention of wealthy people to worthy causes, and thus obtain for them pecuniary aid. This has been one of her achievements from early girlhood, soliciting successfully, sometimes surprisingly so, money for different worthy objects, never failing of the desired amount, and going about it in a way that makes it a pleasure to all concerned. Later in addition to her other work Mrs. Hoyt signed a contract with the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and became a representative in the Boston office, working more particularly on the line of the Gold Bond and Annuity, investments becoming popular with women.
Safe to say in conclusion, that, in addition to her great executive ability and large resourcefulness, her cheerful disposition and happy faculty of rendering herself agreeabie in business relations and also in social life have had much to do with her successful achievement in all her varied lines of effort.
Mrs. Hoyt is a member of the Boston Business League, the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and the Underwriters' Association of Boston.
MARY A. KOTZSCHMAR, wife of the organist, conductor, and composer, Hermann Kotzschmar, of Portland, has made for herself an enviable reputation in the musical circles of that city. She was born in Sacramento, Cal., in 1852. Her parents, Midian Torrey and Mary A. (Griffin) Torrey, were both of good old New England stock, her mother a native of Ellsworth, Me., and her father of Deer Isle, Me. Mr. Torrey was one of the "forty-niners," or gold hunters who went in that year to seek their fortune in California.
