Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/764

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WELLS.
WERTMAN.
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and she had for her assistants Mrs. Anderson and Mr. Starkweather, a Wisconsin soldier. At the hour appointed for opening, there came in a multitude, three-hundred strong. MARY FLETCHER WELLS. Miss Wells remained at the head of Trinity School twenty-seven years. From the crude beginning in 1865 has been developed a flourishing institution, with boarding, industrial and normal departments, sending out every year many teachers, who do efficient work among their people. From that school, under the American Missionary Society, have grown a church and many auxiliary societies. Failing health has made rest and change imperative, and she is now living in her summer home in Chautauqua, where, in 1878. she was among the first to join the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. She was graduated in the class of 1882. She traveled with the Fisk Jubilee Singers the first four months of their introduction to the public.


WERTMAN, Mrs. Sarah Killgore, lawyer, born in Jefferson, Clinton county, Ind., 1st March, 1843. She received from her parents, David and Elizabeth Killgore, a liberal education. She was graduated in Ladoga Seminary in 1862. She then engaged in teaching school for a number of years. She next began the study of law, and attended the law school in Chicago, Ill., during 1869. SARAH KILLGORE WERTMAN. Michigan University just then admitted women, and, on account of the greater convenience it afforded her, she went there during 1870. She was the first woman law student in Michigan University, and the first woman graduate in law of that school, in 1871. She was the first woman admitted to the supreme court of Michigan. Soon after she was taken sick and was an invalid for more than a year. Her naturally fragile body was long in recovering strength. She became the wife of J. S. Wertman, a practicing attorney, of Indianapolis, Ind., 16th June, 1875. The statutes of Indiana required for admission to the bar "male citizens of good moral character," hence she was compelled to content herself with office work. In November, 1878, they changed their location to Ashland, Ohio. She has two living children, Shields K. and Helen M., and one baby, Clay, died in his infancy. For a number of years the higher duties of motherhood prevented her from actively engaging in her profession. As soon as practicable, she resumed her profession, and is now engaged with her husband in the practice of law and the business of abstracting in Ashland. She is a busy and successful woman, a con- secrated Christian and a devoted wife and mother.


WEST, Mrs. Julia E. Houston, soprano singer, born in Ashhumham, Mass., 22nd June, 1832. She is descended from the Tread wells, of Portsmouth, and other well-known families. Taste and talent for music were her inheritance from her father, who was a good general musician and 'cello player, and her mother, who was for several years the chief singer in Dr. Duckinersher's church, in Portsmouth. At an early age her accurate ear and fine voice began to attract notice. She sang in public at fourteen, and at eighteen took the leading part when "The Song of the Bell" was given in Fitchburg. Her singing attracted so much notice that she at once received an invitation from the organists, Bricker and Bancroft, to enter the quartet which they were directing in Boston. She sang for some years in Worcester, and in 1856 she accepted a place in Boston, in Dr. E. E. Hale's church. There she remained three years, when she accepted a call to the Old South Church. In 1867 she returned to Dr. Hale's church, where she remained until her withdrawal from church work, in 1881. The record of oratorio music in the principal cities of the country bears her name as that of one of its greatest exponents. During the war she was often heard in patriotic assemblies, and she sang in the "Ode to Saint Cecilia" at the dedication of the great organ in Music Hall, in the second Jubilee in