Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/72

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performances with orchestra. Her talent in composition has shown itself in the following list of published works: A grand mass in E flat, a graduate for tenor voice, an anthem for chorus and organ, three short anthems for quartet with organ accompaniment, a four-part song for female voices, three vocal duets with pianoforte accompaniment, nineteen songs for single voice with a pianoforte accompaniment, a cadenza to Beethoven's C minor concerto, and a valse caprice for piano. She has in manuscript other compositions, a ballad, several short pieces for the piano or piano and violin, and songs. The mass was performed on 7th February, 1892. by the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, with the Symphony Orchestra and a quartet of soloists assisting.


BEASLEY, Mrs. Marie Wilson, elocutionist and dramatic reader, born in Silver Creek a suburb of Philadelphia, Pa., about 1862. When she was seven years old, her father removed to the West and settled on a farm near Grand Rapids, Mich. Marie lived on the farm until she was fourteen years old, when her father died, leaving the family to make their own way. Bearing good credentials from, the citizens of Paris, Kent county, Marie removed to Grand Rapids. She became a member of the Baptist Church at the age of fourteen years, but is liberal in sentiment towards all creeds that teach Christ and his works. In her youth, while striving to secure an education, she made her needle her support, earning by hard work enough money to enable her to attend Hillsdale College, Hillsdale. Mich., for a year. She afterwards studied under Professor Walter C. Lyman, of Chicago, and since 1SS3, when she made her début as an elocutionist and reader, and also as an instructor in the art of elocution, she has taught MARIE WILSON BEASLEY. many who are already prominent in that field, and her readings have brought her a reputation in many States. She was married in January, 1889, to J. H. Beasley, of Grand Rapids, where they now reside. They spent one year in San Francisco and other points in California. Besides her work as an elocutionist and instructor, she has been a successful lecturer, taking an active interest in the relation of women to law and society. The theme of one of her most successful efforts on the lecture platform is "Woman's Rights, or the XVI th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America." She is a woman of amiable disposition, much force and decided powers of intellect.


BEAUCHAMP. Miss Mary Elizabeth, educator and author, born in Burleigh, England, MARY ELIZABETH BEAUCHAMP. 14th June, 1825. The family removed to this country in 1829, establishing themselves in Coldenham, Orange county, N. Y. In 1832 they removed to Skaneateles, N. Y., where Mr. Beauchamp went into the book business, to which seven years later he united a printing office and the publication of a weekly newspaper, which still maintains a healthy existence. In 1834 he established a thoroughly good circulating library, of nearly a thousand volumes, which was very successful for many years. His daughter had free range of its carefully selec ted treasures and early acquired an unusual familiarity with the best writers of the language. The little girl wrote rhymes when she was ten years old, acrostics for her schoolmates and wildly romantic ballads. Before she entered her "teens" she had become a regular contributor to a juvenile magazine, for which, in her fourteenth year, she furnished a serial running through half a volume. From that time she wrote under various pen-names for several papers and had achieved the honor of an illustrated tale in "Peterson's Magazine" before she was twenty. Then her literary career was checked by ill-health, and for ten years her pen was laid aside almost entirely. What she published during that time appeared in religious papers under the pen-name "Filia