Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/170

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CHAMPNEY.
CHANDLER.
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his best work in illustrating his gifted wife's books. They have one son, Edward Frere. They make their winter home in New York City, and their summers are spent in "Elmstead." the old-fashioned house built in Deerficld, Mass., by Mrs. Champnev's grandfather.


CHANDLER, Mrs. Lucinda Banister, social reformer and author, born in Potsdam, N. Y., 1st April, 1828. Her parents were Silas Banister and Eliza Smith, both of New England birth and ancestry. Mrs. Chandler suffered a spinal injury in early infancy from a fall, and that intensified the susceptibility of a highly nervous organization, and was the cause of a life of invalidism and extreme suffering. As a child she was fond of books and study, and when she entered St. Lawrence Academy, at nine years of age. her teacher registered her as two years older, because of her advancement in studies and seeming maturity of years. At the age of thirteen years her first great LUCINDA BANISTER CHANDLER. disappointment came, when her school course was suspended, never to be resumed, by the severe development of her spinal malady. For several years even reading was denied to her. In her twentieth year she became the wife of John H. Chandler, who was born and raised in Potsdam. The one child born to them was drowned in his third year. Mrs. Chandler's marriage was a happy one, and the tender, devoted care and provision for her relief and benefit by her husband were no doubt the providence that made it possible for her to enjoy a period of usefulness in later life. In the winter of 1870-71 she wrote "Motherhood, Its Power Over Human Destiny," while recuperating from a long illness, and it was so warmly received by a society of ladies in Vineland, N. J., that it was afterwards published in booklet form. That introduced her to many thinking women of Boston, where in 1871-72 she held parlor meetings and achieved the purpose of her heart, the organization of a body of women who were pledged to work for the promotion of enlightened parenthood and an equal and high standard of purity for both sexes. The Moral Education Society of Boston has continued a vigorous existence to the present time. Societies were formed in New York. Philadelphia and Washington, D. C, by the efforts of Mrs. Chandler and with the cooperation of prominent women. That was the first work in this country in the line of educational standards for the elevation and purity of the relations of men and women, inside as well as outside of marriage. The publication of essays, "A Mother's Aid, "Children's Rights" and the "Divineness of Marriage," written by her, followed and furnished a literature for the agitation of questions that since that time have come to be widely discussed. During one of the long periods of prostration and confinement to her room, to which Mrs. Chandler was subject, she commenced study on the lines of political economy as a mental tonic and helpful agency to restoration. After her recovery she wrote extensively for reform publications upon finance reform, the land question and industrial problems. In Chicago, in 1880, the Margaret Fuller Society was founded, especially to interest women in those subjects and the principles of Americanism. A life-long advocate of the total abstinence principle, Mrs. Chandler served as vice-president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Alliance of Illinois. She was the first president of the Chicago Moral Educational Society, formed in 1882. She is an advocate of Christian socialism, and a firm believer in the final triumph of the Christian idea of the brotherhood of man as a practical and controlling principle in commercial and industrial systems.


CHANDLER, Mrs. Mary Alderson, educator, born near Le Raysville, Pa., 16th April, 1849. Her birth place was twenty miles from any town of importance, the only connection with which was the rumbling stage-coach. When other children of her age were profiting by the railroad, the telegraph, music, art, literature and other facilities for unconscious growth and education, she, benightedly, was looking through the little windows of the stone house, dreaming of another world beyond the hills. Her parents were plain English people, whose wealth, they used to say, lay chiefly in their children, of whom there were eight boys and three girls. Her education was begun in the district school, and afterwards she spent two years in the State Normal School, Mansfield, Pa., graduating with the honors of her class in the spring of 1868. She then began her work as a teacher. The first three years of public-school service were spent in western Pennsylvania, the following nine in California. She was everywhere successful. Being largely endowed with enthusiasm, she invariably left in her wake the spirit of progress. Deciding to become a specialist, she went to Philadelphia as a student. While there she met Willard M. Chandler, whose wife and co-worker she became, and whom she accompanied to Boston, her present home. Mr. Chandler was a gentleman of refinement, intelligence, breadth of thought and unusual power as an orator. Their lives were full of promise, but in a short time he died of consumption. Necessity, a strong commander, decided that stenography, which she had learned more as an aid to her husband than otherwise, should then become her vocation. Summoning courage, she threw herself into that educational work and turned out stenographers of so rare a quality as to attract general attention. That led to the publication of her "Graded Lessons" (Boston, 1889), for which her penetrating mind had discovered the greatest