Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/575

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570
PIATT.
PICKETT.

Consul of the United States to Cork, and has since that time resided in Queenstown. Since going to Ireland Mrs. Piatt, who perhaps has some remote Irish traces in her blood, as her maiden name might be held to indicate, has published "An Irish Garland" (Edinburgh, 18S4); a volume of her "Selected Poems" (London. 1885), "In Primrose Time: a New Irish Garland" (London, 1886); "The Witch in the Glass, and Other Poems" (London, 1889), and "An Irish Wild-Flower" (London, 1891). The first, third and last of the volumes just mentioned contained pieces suggested by her experiences in Ireland. A little joint volume by herself and husband, "The Children Out-of-Doors: a Book of Verses by Two in One House," was also published (Edinburgh, 1884), and all of those later volumes were issued simultaneously in the United States. Mrs. Piatt's foreign critics have been, perhaps, more generous in their appreciation than even those of America.


PICKEN, Mrs. Lillian Hoxie, educator, born in Clarksville, Mercer county, Pa., 24th December, 1856. Her family moved to Michigan, and in that State she received a normal and university education. LILLIAN HOXIE PICKEN. After graduation she taught for twenty-years, her work covering all the grades of schools, including six years in the Kansas State Normal School. She has been an instructor in twenty-three normal institutes, and she was conductor of the majority of them, has contributed to educational and literary periodicals for many years and has been identified with the educational interests of Kansas for eighteen years. She had that instinctive love for the work of teaching which is marked in all successful educators. In 1886 she became the wife of W. S. Picken, and her home is now in Iola, Kans.


PICKETT, Mrs. Lasell Carbell, author, born in Chuckatuck, Nansemond county, Va.. in 1848. She became the wife of Gen. George E. Pickett on 15th September, 1863. a short time after his famous charge at Gettysburg and the three-day conflict which linked his name to the line of heroes crowned with national homage. At the time of her LASELL CARBELL PICKETT. marriage, Mrs. Pickett was a beautiful girl of fifteen. Her trousseau was smuggled across the lines in bales of hay, and the girlish bride-to-be, taking her fate in her own hands, donned the garb of an old country woman, who sold vegetables to the soldiers, and through strategy reached the camp of General Pickett, who was eagerly waiting for his young bride. From the day of her marriage she shared every phase of army life in camp and in battle, by the side of the hero whom she worshiped. When the war was over, an effort was made to take from General Pickett the privileges given him by the Grant-Lee cartel, and General and Mrs. Pickett went to Canada. Without money and far from friends, it was for the heroic woman to show her indomitable courage. She obtained a professorship in belles-lettres and took care of her family, and General Grant insisted that the cartel should be honored, and the General and his family returned to their home. General Grant then tendered General Pickett the position of Marshal of Virginia, but he chose to accept a situation in an insurance company in Norfolk, with a large salary. Then gladness and peace came to the wife and mother, but only for a little while, and she was left a heart-broken widow with the care of an orphaned son. Again her courage shone out. The sympathy of the South was aroused, and a subscription was started with eight-thousand dollars from one State, and pledges of thousands more from the devoted comrades of her dead hero. Hearing of that plan to put her above the anxiety of temporal want, Mrs. Pickett resolutely declined to accept financial aid, and soon secured a small government position sufficient to support herself and son. In 1891, after recovering from a distressing accident, she was