Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/110

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BONES.
BONES.

Trumbulls, were orginally from Connecticut, and were descendants of Jonathan Trumbull, better known by Washington's pet name, "Brother Jonathan." Her education was received in the Huidekooper MARIETTA M. BONES. Seminary, Meadville, Pa., and in the Washington, Pa , female seminary. Mrs. Bones was elected vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage Association for Dakota Territory, in 1881, and was annually re-elected for nine years. She made her debut as a public speaker in an oration at a Fourth of July celebration in Webster, Dak., in 1882. In September, 1883, she addressed Dakota's State Constitutional Convention on behalf of woman's enfranchisement. Failing to have her claim for woman's equality before the law recognized in the State Constitution there framed, she earnestly petitioned both houses of Congress to deny Dakota's admission to the Union as a State. Then she carried on several lively newspaper controversies against efforts to make the social question of temperance a political question. She is an active temperance worker and was secretary of the first Non-partisan National Woman's Christian Temperance Union convention in Chicago, in 1889, for which the local Woman's Temperance Union in Webster, over which she had presided the previous year, discharged her, returning her dues, paid nearly three months before, with an official notice "That the ladies of Webster union moved and carried that Mrs Bones' dues be returned on acccount of her having joined the secession movement, and also on account of her antagonism to our State president." As a pioneer settler in her town, she secured for it a donation of a block of lots for a courthouse and county buildings, and through her influence Day county was divided and a part added thereto, in order that the county-seat should be centrally located. So interested was she that their State capital should be situated at the geographical center, that the board of trade in the city of Pierre invited her to be the guest of their city. Through her intercession three infirm veterans of the war have been sent, at the expense of her county, to the Soldiers' Home in Hot Springs, S. Dak. Mrs. Bones was an able assistant of Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage in organizing the Woman's National Liberal Union. She addressed the convention in Washington, D. C., and is one of the executive council of that organization. The energy of Mrs. Bones knows no bounds when work is needed, and her perfect health helps her willing hand.


MILDRED A. BONHAM. BONHAM, Mrs. Mildred A., traveler and journalist, born in Magnolia. III., in August, 1840. She is of southern blood from Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee ancestry. Her parents removed to Oregon in 1847, settling in the Willamette valley. In 1858 she became the wife of Judge B. F. Bonham, of Salem, Ore. In 1885 Judge Bonham was appointed Consul-General to British India, and removed his family to Calcutta the same year. Mrs Bonham had always a liking for literary work, but the cares of a large family and social duties gave her scant leisure, and it was not until her residence abroad the opportunity came. During five years her letters over the name "Mizpah" attracted much attention and were widely copied by the Oregon and California press. Mrs. Bonham has a gift of observing closely, and her descriptions of foreign scenes make a valuable addition to our knowledge of Anglo-Indian life and customs. Her letters from the Himalayas, the island of Ceylon and other notable places are the best. Her deepest sympathy was aroused by the miserable condition and soul-starvation of the women of India, and she set about relieving, so far as lay in her power, their cheerless lot. By her personal appeal a Hindoo girl was educated by a number of young ladies of Salem. The child became a home missionary. Through Mrs. Bonham's further efforts a fund of one-thousand dollars was raised to found a perpetual scholarship.