Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/569

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PECKHAM.
PEEKE.

became the wife of Charles N. Creemer, of New York, who died in 1878. She gained entrance to the New Haven School for Nurses, in the hospital, and faithfully discharged the duties of nurse until LUCY CREEMER PECKKAM she was graduated. In August, 1880, she was sent to Pittsfield to take charge of the hospital called the "House of Mercy." There she remained two years. As the work opened before her, she realized that deeper and more thorough knowledge of medical science would give her a still larger scope. She resolved to enter college and pursue the regular curriculum. In 1882 she matriculated in the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, and was graduated in 1885. Since that year she has practiced medicine in her old home, New Haven, Conn. In August, 1889, she was married a second time. On the suggestion of her husband, John A. Peckham, who is in full sympathy with all her work, she selected from poems which she had written and published at intervals during many years, about forty, and had them published in book form, with the title "Sea Moss" (Buffalo, 1891). Dr. Peckham is a practical woman and has had marked success in whatever she has undertaken. Her poems are the outcome of inspirations, and they have been put into form as they have sung themselves to her during the busy hours of the day or night.


PEEKE, Mrs. Margaret Bloodgood, author, born near Saratoga Springs, N. Y., 8th April, 1838. Most of her youthful days were spent in the city of New York. At her father's death she was but twelve years of age. Her mother's brother, Chancellor Erastus C. Benedict, of New York, charged himself with her education and became in many ways her counselor and guide. MARGARET BLOODGOOD PEEKE. At the age of sixteen years she was already a contributor to magazines and periodicals. At the age of twenty-two years she became the wife of Rev. George H. Peeke, now of Sandusky, Ohio. For fifteen years she attended only to family and parish duties, and the cherished thought of a literary life was abandoned. At length leisure came in an unexpected way. Long continued ill health gave truce to outer cares without damping the ardor of the spirit. Her pen was resumed, and songs and stories found their way to various periodicals. Mrs. Peeke was for a time associate editor of the "Alliance," of Chicago. Her letters drew attention to her favorite summer-resort in the Cumberland mountains, and a little pamphlet entitled "Pomona" was her reply to many requests for information. A serial story, "The Madonna of the Mountains," and other serial sketches, breathe the pure air and primitive human sympathies of that region. Her college novel, called "Antrobus," written while her son was in college in New England, was purchased by the Detroit "Free Press" and published as a serial in 1892, preparatory to a more permanent book form. Her later time has been devoted to a work connected with the pygmies of America and the origin of the race. That was issued under the title "Horn of Flame" (Philadelphia, 1892). She is an enthusiastic lover of the Bible and teaches it with ease and success that fill her classes to overflowing.


PEIRCE, Miss Frances Elizabeth, elocutionist and educator, born on her father's place, Bellevue, eighty miles from Detroit, Mich., 11th August, 1857. She is the only child of Dr. James L. and Rachel M. Peirce. When she was nineteen months old, her parents removed to Fallsington, Pa. Her father's health failed from overwork in his profession, and they sought a home in Philadelphia, Pa., when she was in her seventh year. Her early education was entirely under her father's care, and, while thorough, it was in some ways very peculiar. She learned her letters from the labels upon her father's medicines and could read their Latin names before she could read English. Miss