Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/663

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658
SIMPSON.
SKELTON.

They were married 20th September, 1865. In December, 1888. their daughter Maude was born and in May. 1871, their son Howard Williams was born. She has written her poems mainly in moments of inspiration, and not as a serious task. Her productions have appeared in various popular periodicals and are warmly received. In 1883 a fair for the benefit of the Young Men's Christian Association was held in Bangor, and she was asked to give something saleable. The result was a "Tete-a-tete Cook Book," of which one-thousand copies were sold. She published an enlarged edition in 1891. Her home in Bangor is a center of literature and refinement. She has painted many artistic works in oil. Her mother died in March, 1889. in the seventy-fifth year of her age.


SKELTON, Mrs. Henneriette, temperance worker, born in Giessen, Germany, 5th November, 1842, where her father was connected with the university. Soon after her birth her father was called to Darmstadt, and later, as professor, to Heidelberg, where he died when Henneriette was fifteen years old. HENNERIETTE SKELTON. After the mother's death the children emigrated to Canada, where Henneriette became the wife of Mr. Skelton, traffic superintendent of the Northern Railroad. They had one son. In 1874 Mr. Skelton died in their home in Toronto, Canada, and soon after, the son, showing signs of pulmonary disease, accompanied his mother to southern California, hoping to find health. The hope was not realized. In 1882 he died. Mrs. Skelton then devoted herself to the cause of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with which for years, during her residence in Canada, she had been closely identified. Her name will be associated in the minds of thousands of the German citizens of the United States as one of the most fearless and indefatigable workers in the cause of temperance. For a time she conducted the temperance paper known as "Der Bahnbrecher," besides writing three hooks, published in the English language. " The Man-Trap" (Toronto), a temperance story, "Clara Burton" (Cincinnati), a story for girls, and "The Christmas Tree" (Cincinnati), a picture of domestic life in Germany. Her energy and zeal in the reform to which she is devoting her life were early recognized by the national executive board of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and she was appointed one of its national organizers. In that capacity she has traveled over the United States, lecturing in both the English and her native tongue, and leaving behind h r local unions of women well organized and permeated with earnestness her platform efforts are marked by breadth of thought, dignity of style and the very essence of profound convictions. Her home is in San Francisco. Cal.


SLOCUM, Miss Jane Mariah, educator, born in Slocumville, N. Y., 1st May. 1842. Her paternal ancestor, Giles Slocum. came from Somersetshire, England, in 1642. Giles Slocum was a friend, as were all his descendants in direct line until Jane M. joined the Congregational Church in Canandaigua. N.Y. Her grandfather. Hon. Caleb Slocum, moved from Dartmouth, Mass.. to the town of Le Ray, Jefferson, county, N. Y., when her father, Samuel Gilford Slocum, was a small boy. The French gentleman who purchased and named the town after himself lived in luxuriant style in a country seat which he established, and as her grandfather became his private secretary, the little-quaker boy grew up in an atmosphere which served not a little to broaden his horizon and to educate him. Making use of such opportunities as he had, her father became a leading citizen in the new community. He was married to a young Friend, Phebe Palmer, and reared his six children in his own simple, honest faith. He supported a little school for the children of the hamlet, and there, in Slocumville, Jane began her education at the early age of two-and-one-half years She learned to read without difficulty and developed an omnivorous taste for books. Fortunately, no trash came in her way. The district school, with a woman to teach in the summer and a man in the winter, had to suffice until she was fifteen, when she was permitted to go to a small boarding-school. The following year she went to the new Friend's boarding-school in Union Springs, N. Y. Graduating after a three-year course, just as the war broke out, she was turned from her purpose of entering Oberlin or Antioch College, the only higher institutions of learning then open to women. She was yet too young to be allowed to go to the front, and she continued her studies in a collegiate institute. Before the close of the war her zeal to take some active part in the conflict led her to join the first volunteers for teaching the Freedmen. She received an appointment to teach in Yorktown, Pa. A little school building was erected on Darlington Heights, on York River, and there she devoted eight months of labor to the new race problem. A Severe attack of malarial fever made a return to that field impracticable. One school year was given to the teaching of a private school in Philadelphia, N. Y., and the summer was devoted to the study of hook-keeping in the commercial college in Rochester, N. Y. An imperative call to Howland School, Union Springs, N. Y., resulted in further association with old teachers, and for ten years she continued to labor there, building up the first department for girls in civil government and political economy. In 1873. after being made principal, she took a leave of absence for two terms of the year, to pursue a law course in the University