City. She was at an early age a contributor to various papers and magazines, but not until 1880 did she join the ranks of the professional writers. Always fond of social life, for which she is, by various accomplishments, particularly adapted, she has enjoyed an intimate association with many prominent Americans, including the late Samuel J. Tilden. Some of the brightest glimpses of the private life and noble character of that statesman can be obtained from her journals, which are a daily record, in many uniform volumes, not only of her own life, but of the important events of the social, dramatic, political, religious and literary world. Those journals are profusely illustrated and are of great value, since the daily record is unbroken for a period of over twenty years. They will probably find a resting place in some public library, as their versatile author has no children to inherit them. She is now in editorial charge of important departments in several leading magazines. Perseverance and power of concentration, joined with inherited ability, have led to her success.
READ, Mrs. Elizabeth C. Bunnell, journalist and woman suffragist, born on a farm in Dewitt township, near Syracuse, N. Y., on Christmas eve, 1834, the fifth child in a family of four boys and five girls. Her father, Edmund Harger Bunnell, was born in Connecticut, the son of Nathan Bunnell and Currence Twitchell, his wife. Her mother was Betsey Ann Ashley, daughter of Dr. John Ashley, of Catskill, N. Y., and his wife Elizabeth Johnstone, of the Johnstones of colonial fame. Her paternal grandfather was a soldier of 181 2, and his father was a Revolutionary hero. One of her brothers, Nathan Bunnell, enlisted at the age of
.jpg)
ELIZABETH C. BUNNELL READ.
seventeen, in Company A, Twentieth Indiana Infantry, was wounded at Gaines' Mill, taken prisoner, and died in Libby prison, Richmond, Va., 12th July, 1862. When Elizabeth was fourteen years old, her parents removed from New York to Indiana, where, within six weeks after their arrival, her mother died. Business ventures proved unfortunate, and the family circle was soon broken. Before she was sixteen, Miss Bunnell began to teach school. Having an opportunity to learn the printing business, she determined to do so, and found the occupation congenial, though laborious. She served an apprenticeship of two years, and then accepted the foremanship of a weekly paper and job office in Peru, Ind. That post she filled four years. At the end of that time, in January, 1861, she commenced the publication of a semi-monthly journal called the "Mayflower," devoted to literature, temperance and equal rights. That paper had a subscription list reaching into all the States and Territories. On 4th March, 1863, she became the wife of Dr. S. G. A.- Read. In 1865 she removed with him to Algona, Iowa, where they now live. There she began the publication of a weekly county paper, the "Upper Des Moines," representing the interests of the upper Des Moines valley, which at that time had no other newspaper. She commenced to write for the press when about twenty, and has continued as a contributor to several different journals. A series of articles in the "Northwestern Christian Advocate." in 1872, on the status of women in the Methodist Church, led to their more just recognition in subsequent episcopal addresses. In church membership Mrs. Read is a Methodist, and in religious sympathy and fellow ship belongs to the church universal. She is deeply interested in all social and moral problems. The unfortunate and criminal classes have always enlisted her most sympathetic attention. She is now associate editor of the "Woman's Standard," of Des Moines, Iowa, a journal devoted to equal rights, temperance and literature. She was vice-president of the Indiana State Woman Suffrage Society, while residing there, and has been president of the Iowa
