Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/588

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PORTER.
PORTER.
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the condition of the working classes abroad. During Mr. Porter's residence in Washington as superintendent of census, Mrs. Porter has been occupied with family cares and social obligations, and has written only in aid of working women, educational projects and in behalf of suffering children. She as recently assumed the editorship of a paper in eastern Tennessee, in the development of which part of the country Mr. Porter is greatly interested.


PORTER, Mrs. Florence Collins, temperance worker, born in Caribou, Me., 14th August, 1853. Her father, Hon. Samuel W. Collins, was one of the early pioneers of Aroostook county. Her early surroundings were those incidental to a new country. FLORENCE COLLINS PORTER. In November, 1873, she became the wife of Charles W. Porter, a Congregational clergyman. Besides the pastorate in Caribou, her husband has also a church in Old Town and Winthrop, their present home. Her interests have been longer identified with Caribou, for not only were her girlhood days spent there, but ten years also of her married life. At about fifteen years of age she began to write for the newspapers and periodicals. Since then she has done more or less journalistic work and has also contributed short sketches and stories to various publications. During the last five years she has been interested in public temperance reform, with good success as a lecturer. She first came into public work upon the platform through her husband's encouragement, influence and cooperation. At the formation of the Non-partisan Woman's Christian Temperance Union, in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1889, she was chosen national secretary of literature and press-work. In that capacity she is now actively engaged, with plenty of work to do and widening possibilities.


PORTER, Miss Rose, religious novelist, was born in New York, N. Y. Her father, David Collins Porter, was a wealthy New Yorker. He died in 1845, while Rose was an infant. Her mother was a cultured woman, the daughter of an English army officer. Miss Porter's early years were spent in New York and in their summer home in Catskill-on-the-Hudson. She was educated in New York, with the exception of a year abroad. After completing her education, she and her mother made their home in New Haven, Conn. The mother died several years ago, and Miss Porter has kept her home in New Haven, where, with her servants, she lives in English style. Her books have a large sale. Her first success was "Summer Drift-Wood for the Winter Fire." Notwithstanding the fact that she has been an invalid for years, her pen has been busy and prolific, and illness has not been sufficient to break her courageous spirit or to check the operations of her bright, active, well-stored mind. Her work is all of the moral order, but she is by no means a sickly sentimentalist. Her books are healthful in tone. As a writer of quiet religious romance she stands in the first rank. Fastidious critics in both secular and religions papers commend her work for its evident and successful mission to the world, graceful style and pure English. She has published thirty-three or more volumes.


POST, Mrs. Amalia Barney Simons, woman suffragist, born in Johnson, Lamoille county, Vt., 30th January, 1836. Her ancestors were prominent in early American history, one of them, Thomas Chittenden, being the first Governor of Vermont, and several were officers in the Revolutionary War and in the American army and navy in the War of 1812. Mrs. Post is the daughter of William Simons and Amalia Barney, of Johnson. Both parents were of sterling integrity and patriotism, and of great strength of character. AMALIA BARNEY SIMONS POST. Miss Simons, in Chicago, 1864, became the wife of Morton E. Post, and with her husband crossed the plains in 1866, settling in Denver, Colo., and moving to Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1867, where they have since lived. Her life in Wyoming has been closely identified with the story