in all directions. Miss Newell is a woman of broad Christian spirit and an earnest worker in the Unitarian church. She has been and is an active worker in many lines. She organized the Mattapannock Club of South Boston, which has a representative membership and is a benefit to the district. Miss Newell is a strong suffragist. When Mrs. Julia Ward Howe organized a branch in South Boston, she and her mother and sister were some of the first to respond. Miss Newell was a member of the first Ward and City Committee in the early days of women's voting and among the first to cast her vote.
She was among the first to become interested in the Associated Charities when a branch was formed in South Boston, and as far as able she continues to hold her interest in the work of the organization. She was the first president of the Primary Teachers' Association of Boston, and has been for eight years president of the Lady Teachers' Association of South Boston. This association was formed in 1874, it being the only one where relief in case of sickness is made prominent. She is a member of the Denison and Boston Teachers' Club, president of the Mattapannock Club, corresponding secretary of Hawes Church Women's Alliance, and historian for the Dorchester Heights Chapter, D. R. She is a good presiding officer. She writes with ease and fluency, and has given many lectures.
Miss Newell has always been very patriotic and devoted to the interests of her country. At the breaking out of the Civil War, while waiting for an opportunity to enter the public schools, she gave her time to her country, and was one of the first to enter Liberty Hall, in Boston, when busy hands made light work of much that was needed in those days. Again, years after, during the Spanish-American War, when organizations were formed for assisting the soldiers, she gave the greater part of her vacation to the cause, although greatly in need of a change from her long, continuous labor of teaching.
Miss Newell has made many ocean voyages with her father and mother, having been around Cape Horn four times. Her travels have been extensive, and she has used her opportunities for the benefit of others. Her life to the present has been a strenuous one, with many tragic and strange periods: but the privations and trials have given her place among women who have striven to overcome difficulties, and have made them stepping-stones to a broad and noble life.
MARY ALDERSON ATHERTON was born in Pennsylvania, near the village of LeRaysville. Her parents, John and Margaret Alderson, were English people whose chief wealth consisted of their eleven children, eight boys and three girls. In 1881 Miss Alderson married Willard M. Chandler, of Boston, a leader in liberal thought, who died in 1889. In 1903 Mrs. Chandler became the wife of Frederick Atherton, a well-known attorney of Boston.
Her education began in the typical country school, open three months in winter and three in summer. It was continued at the village academy one term and at the Orwell Hill graded school three terms, a teacher's certificate then being granted her at the age of fifteen. At sixteen, or as early as the law of the Keystone State permitted, she began teaching in a small country school in what was locally known as the "Cleveland District."
Having entered upon the work to which she was by nature inclined, she determined to gain in it the front rank. This necessitated a broader education and special training, and from what source the requisite funds were to come was an unsolved and seemingly hopeless-problem. But at this critical juncture Fate took her by the hand, and, as if, in its earnest aspirations, one soul had bounded over the intervening mountains and wildernesses and struck a responsive chord in the heart of another, a letter came from a good elder Brother, who many years before had gone prospecting in the rough country that lay toward the setting sun. The letter said in part: "The little sister whom I left behind me years ago must be a young lady by this time, and I want her to be given an education. Send her away to school. Here is two hundred dollars as a starter, and if I make a big stake, as I have a good show to
