Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/29

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24
AMES.
AMIES.

ments in modern social reforms. Miss Ames has been to Europe several times and traveled extensively. She has for some years conducted numerous large adult classes in Boston and vicinity in studies in nineteenth century thought, taking Emerson, Lowell, Carlyle, Webster and Bryce as the bases for study. She has been a contributor to various periodicals. She is a woman suffragist and an earnest worker in furthering measures that shall promote good citizenship. She is a niece of Charles Carleton Coffin, the author of books for boys. Her home is in Boston, Mass., in which vicinity she has spent the greater part of her life.


AMES, Mrs Mary Clemmer, see Hudson, Mrs. Mary Clemmer.


OLIVE POND AMIES.

AMIES, Mrs. Olive Pond, educator and lecturer, born in Jordan, N. Y. She was two weeks old when her father died, and the mother and child went to the home of the grandparents in New Britain, Conn. There the mother worked untiringly with her needle for the support of herself and her two children. The older child, a boy, was placed in the care of an uncle, and to Olive the mother took the place of father, mother, brother and sister. When Olive was four years old, the mother and child left the home of the grandmother and went to the village to board, that Olive might be sent to school. Soon after this the mother married Cyrus Judd, a man of influence in the town of New Britain. Olive continued in school for many years. She passed through the course of the New Britain high school, was graduated from the State Normal School, and later, after several years of teaching, was graduated from the Normal and Training School in Oswego, N. Y. She was always a leader in school and became eminent as a teacher. She has for many years given model lessons at conventions and institutes. For five years in the State of New York and two in the State of Maine she was in constant demand in the county teachers' institutes. She founded the training school for teachers in Lewiston, Maine, and graduated its first classes. In 1871 she was married to the Rev. J. H. Amies, pastor of the Universalist Church, Lewiston, Maine, though she had been brought up a Methodist and had become, in later years, an Episcopalian. In 1877 she began to edit the primary department of the "Sunday School Helper," published in Boston, the exponent for the Universalist Church of the of the International Lessons. Since January, 1880, she has never failed with a lesson, excepting two months in 1884, during a severe illness. The Rev. Mr. Amies is a student, a man of original thought, and in full sympathy with the advanced questions of the day. Mrs. Amies feels that his encouragement and assistance have been the moving power in her work. They have constantly studied together and stood side by side in sympathy and work whether in the pulpit, on the lecture platform, or in the home. She holds State positions in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Woman Suffrage Association, and delivers lectures on the different themes connected with those two organizations. She also speaks on kindergarten and object-teaching, and her "Conversations on Juvenile Reforms" have been exceedingly popular wherever given. Her home is now in Philadelphia, Pa. She has had a family of six children, three girls and three boys, of whom one son and one daughter died while young.


AMORY, Mrs. Estelle Mendell, educator and author, born in Ellisburgh, Jefferson county, N. Y., 3d June, 1845. She is better known as a writer by her maiden name, Estelle Mendell. Her childhood was passed on a farm. In 1852 her family moved to Adams, a near-by village, where her father, S. J. Mendell, engaged in mercantile business. The Mendell home was a home of refinement and culture, and Colonel and Mrs. Mendell entertained many prominent persons, among whom were Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Starr King, Edwin H. Chapin, Frederick Douglass and Gerrit Smith; and intercourse with those brilliant men and others did much to inspire the young girl with a desire to make a mark in literature. When the Civil War broke out, Mr. Mendell raised a company of soldiers, took a commission as captain and went to the South. He served throughout the war, rising to the rank of colonel by brevet. Estelle had developed meanwhile into a studious young woman, and had taught her first school. She studied in the Hungerford Collegiate Institute in her home town, and in Falley Seminary, Fulton, N. Y. In 1866 the family moved to Franklin county, Iowa. There Estelle continued to teach. In 1867 she returned to the East and re-entered Falley Seminary, from which institution she was graduated with honors in 1868. Her family—there were eight brothers and sisters—had been placed in financial straits by the war, and Estelle was obliged to earn the money, aided by some devoted friends, with which to complete her seminary course. Then followed seven years of earnest work as a teacher, she holding successively the positions of governess in a family in Chicago, and principal and preceptress of seminaries in the East. In 1875 she became the wife of J. H. Amory, of a prominent family of Binghamton, N.Y., and they went to Elgin, Ill., to live. During all those years Mrs. Amory had written much but done little in the way of publication. At length she began to offer her work. Ready acceptance encouraged her, and soon she became a regular contributor to standard periodicals. Her literary productions consist mainly of domestic articles, short stories for children, essays on living themes and