Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/656

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SHELDON.
SHERMAN.
651

secured many interesting views, which she published in her interesting volume on Africa. "Sultan to Sultan." Her home is in New York City


SHELLEY, Mrs. Mary Jane, temperance and missionary worker, born in Weedsport N. Y., 20th May, 1832. Her maiden name was Wright. Her father was pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Weedsport. They removed to Illinois in 1843, where her father died in 1846. She received religious training under Bishop Peck, of New York, and was one of his special charges. She became the wife of Rev. L. Shelley, whose ancestral home was in Shelley Islands, eastern Pennsylvania. MARY JANE SHELLEY. They removed to Iowa, where her influence for good was felt in her husband's work. Though naturally timid, retiring and adverse to publicity, she responded willingly when Bishop Peck called her forth to special work in the interest of reform and religious affairs. With spirit and determination she began her public work at the age of forty-seven. She was for five years vice-president of the first Nebraska district for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, resigning to accept new duties in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, of which body she was conference secretary for Nebraska. She traveled over the State, often in her carriage for many hundred miles, organizing auxiliaries, encouraging workers everywhere, and often supplying pulpits. From 1884 to 1891 she was treasurer of the Topeka branch, but resigned because of failing health and eyesight She is thorough, systematic and business-like in her work, to which she has given herself with energy and unselfish devotion for fourteen years. Her home is in Weymore, Neb.


SHERIDAN, Miss Emma V., see Fay, Mrs. Emma V. Sheridan.


SHERMAN, Mrs. Eleanor Boyle Ewing, social leatler, born in Lancaster, Ohio, 4th October, 1824, and died in New York City, 28th November, 1888. Descended from a long line of Scotch and Irish ancestors, she inherited from them the strength of will and persevering determination which characterized her actions, and also her Catholic faith. ELEANOR BOYLE EWING SHERMAN. Her father, Thomas Ewing, was one of the most eminent lawyers of his day, twice a Senator of the United States and twice a member of a President's cabinet Her mother, Maria Boyle, was a gentle, lovely woman, w ho devoted her life to her husband and children. Surrounded from infancy, as Eleanor Ewing was, by all the charms and graces of a refined and elegant home, it is not strange that she developed into a woman of unusual brilliancy. Her mind was clear and analytical. When a boy of nine years, William Tecumseh Sherman was adopted, out of love for his family, by Mr Ewing. Unconsciously the child's admiration for the lad grew into the pure devotion of the maiden, and at seventeen Eleanor was engaged to her soldier lover. They were married 1st May, 1850, in Washington, where her father w as a member of President Taylor's cabinet. The wedding was a military one. One or two stations completed her experience of army life at that time, and when her husband resigned from the army and accepted a position in a bank in California, in 1853, she went with him. They returned to the East in 1857- During the Civil War. when her husband and brothers were lighting for the Union, she waited and watched with an anxious heart, powerless to do anything but pray for the success of the cause dear to every loyal soul. When the newspapers raised the cry against her husband, she made a long and weary journey to Washington, saw President Lincoln, convinced him that matters had been misrepresented to him, and. as a result of her endeavors, her husband was placed over another command. Again, at the close of the war, when General Sherman was abused on all sides for his terms in the