Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/320

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
315
GARNER.
GAUSE.

of her neighborhood. She taught successfully for twelve years She was the first woman candidate for political office in South Carolina or in the South. In 1888 she announced herself a candidate for county school commissioner, with the proposition to the people that, if elected, she would use the salary of the office to lengthen the school term from three to six months and to supply the schools with books A few conservatives and her own family prevented her election. The Democratic committee refused to print her ticktes or to allow them to be printed. She engaged the editor of the county paper to print her tickets, paying him in advance, and he printed them on inferior paper and in an unlawful shape, saying afterward that he had done so under the direction of the committee. When the votes were counted, her tickets were thrown out because of their unlawful shape. She was thus defeated. In 1890 she renewed her candidacy and her offer. She attended campaign meetings and read an address to the voters, but was again defeated in a similar way. Her opponent in 1890 was a former schoolmate. She returned to the work of teaching, only to receive a notification from him that the public money of the school district in which she was teaching had been appropriated to other schools He requested her to close the school. She refused. She taught the school a full term and claimed her salary by law. Miss Garner's experience illustrates the disagreeable nature of the obstacles in the way of women in the South, who venture out of the beaten path.


GAUSE, Mrs. Nora Trueblood, humanitarian, born on a farm fifty-five miles north of Indianapolis, Ind , 9th February, 1851. She is a NORA TRUEBLOOD GAUSE. daughter of Thomas E. and Sarah J. Trueblood, Her parents being members of the Society of Friends, well educated and of a progressive spirit, the daughter naturally championed the cause of the downtrodden. She early manifested a love for declamation and composition, and her first writings are remarkable for their emphatic denunciation of wrong and earnest pleadings for right. From 1868 to 1888 she served in the public schools of Indiana as a teacher. The succeeding five years, as far as lay in her power, were given to home and family, but, so successful was she in reaching the public that she was often called to the platform as a lecturer and organizer. In October, 1886, just one year from the date of her husband's death, she joined the humane workers of Chicago and spent the four succeeding months in writing for the "Humane Journal." In March, 1887, she began to organize societies for the prevention of cruelty, holding public meetings and doing whatever she could to awaken thought on the humane question. To say that her efforts have been attended with enthusiasm and success would be a mild statement, for thousands have been made to see the error of their ways by her convincing arguments and earnest appeals for better protection for all helpless life. She publishes occasional letters descriptive of her travels and work accomplished, and other articles in the " Humane Journal."


ELMINA M. ROYS GAVITT. GAVITT, Mrs Elmina M. Roys, physician born in Fletcher, Vt., 8th September. 1828. She is the second of eight children. She came of old Puritan stock, developing in her life that intense conscientiousness with regard to what she believes to be right, and that stern, uncompromising devotion to duty that characterized her New England ancestors. Her parents were to a great extent the instructors of their flock, both in religious and secular matters, for there were public schools but half of the year, and church privileges were few and far between. When Elmina was fourteen years old, business interests caused a removal of the family to Woonsocket, R. I. For the next twelve years the shadow of ill-health stretched across her