Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/594

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PRESTON.
PRITCHARD.
589

PRESTON, Mrs. Margaret Junkin, poet, born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1825. She is a daughter of the late Dr. George Junkin, who at the outbreak of the war was president of Washington College in Lexington, Va. He died in 1868. In her young womanhood she became the wife of Col. Preston, connected with the Virginia Military Institute. She began to write verses when a child. Her first published work appeared in "Sartain's Magazine in 1849 and 1850. In 1856 she published her novel, "Silverwood, a Book of Memories." She sympathized with the South in the Civil War, and many of her fugitive poems, printed before the war in southern journals breathed her spirit of resistance to the North. In 1865 she published a volume of verse, " Beechenbrook." devoted to the Civil War, and containing her "Slain in Battle" and "Stonewall Jackson's Grave," with many other lyrics on the war. In 1870 she published a second volume of verse, "Old Songs and New," which contains the most admirable of her productions. She has contributed art-poems to a number of leading magazines, and her ballads are particularly fine pieces of work. She was one of trie most prominent contributors to the "Southern Literary Messenger." Her attainments are varied, and she has made excellent translations from both ancient and modern languages. Her recent publications are "Cartoons" (Boston, 1875), "For Love's Sake: Poems of Faith and Comfort " (New York, 1886), "Colonial Ballads, Sonnets and Other Verse" (Boston, 1887). "A Handful of Monographs, Continental and Knglish " (New York, 1887).


PRITCHARD, Mrs. Esther Tattle, minister and editor, born in Morrow county, Ohio, 26th January, 1840. She comes from a long line of Quaker ESTHER TUTTLE PRITCHARD. ancestry, and her ministerial ability is inherited from both parents. Her father, Daniel Wood, was an able preacher, and there were a number in her mother's family. A gay girl, strong-willed and ambitious, it was not until the discipline of sorrow brought a full surrender to Christ, that she yielded to what was manifestly her vocation. In early womanhood she became the wife of Lucius V. Tuttle, a volunteer in the Civil War, who had survived the horrors of a long imprisonment in Libby, Tuscaloosa and Salisbury to devote the remainder of his life to the profession of teaching. He died in 1881, and in 1884 Mrs. Tuttle was chosen by the Woman's Foreign Missionary Boards of her church to edit the "Friend's Missionary Advocate," and took up her headquarters in Chicago, Ill. Shortly after her removal to that city she became the wife of Calvin W. Pritchard, editor of the "Christian Worker." She became the proprietor of the "Missionary Advocate" in 1886, and continued to edit and publish the paper with a marked degree of success until the autumn of 1890, when it passed by gift from her hands to the Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of Friends. For the last two years she has been actively engaged as teacher of the English Bible in the Chicago training school for city, home and foreign missions, besides acting as superintendent of the systematic-giving department of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Her talents would compass far more, but frail health imposes limitations upon her work. Her present home is in Western Springs, Ill.


PROCTOR, Mrs. Mary Virginia, journalist and philanthropist, born in a quaint old homestead on a farm in Rappahannock county, Va., and May, 1854. Her maiden name was Mary Virginia Swindler. In 1858 her parents removed to Greene county, Ohio, and settled upon a farm, where Mary grew to womanhood, receiving such educational ad vantages as the rural schools of the time could offer. When scarcely fifteen years of age, she engaged in teaching neighborhood schools, but, after a period of such labor covering two years, feeling the necessity of a broader education, she entered the Xenia Female College, a Methodist institution, where in eighteen months she was graduated. After her graduation she was engaged as a teacher in the Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphan Home, in Xenia. In her capacity as teacher she served in that institution until 1879. At the time of her incumbency Thomas Meigher Proctor was engaged in editing the "Home Weekly," a paper devoted to the interests of the institution. He was a man of fine abilities and has been connected with many of the leading daily journals of the country. Their acquaintance ended in marriage on 27th November, 1879, in the Home. After the marriage Mr. Proctor continued the management of the "Home Weekly" for nearly a year, when they removed to Wilmington, Ohio, where he became the editor and proprietor of the "Clinton County Democrat." In Wilmington their only child, Merrill Anne Proctor, was born. They continued to live in Wilmington until 1883, and during that time Mrs. Proctor contributed many articles to the " Democrat." In 1883 they removed to Lebanon. Ohio, where they commenced the lucrative and successful management of the "Lebanon Patriot" In no small degree its prosperity must be attributed to the foresight, prudence and executive ability of Mrs. Proctor. Mr. Proctor died 13th July, 1891. In her widowhood and with the care and nurture of her child solely upon her, Mrs. Proctor was broken, but not dismayed. She assumed the management of the paper. It has grown in literary excellence. In addition to the her she expends upon the paper, she is a regular contributor to the Cincinnati "Enquirer," and furnishes many articles to other dailies and magazines. She has been honored by two governors of