Page:Women of distinction.djvu/315

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WOMEN OF DISTNCTION.
245

them. While teaching she did not fail to practice economy, for she saved means to lift a heavy debt off her property which she mortgaged to secure means to finish her education.

In 1880 she married Mr. Lindsey Hayden, an accomplished gentleman, who was principal of the public school of Liberty (now Bedford City), Va. Unfortunately for her Mr. Hayden lived only a few months after marriage. During his short illness Mr. Hayden found in her every requisite of a true wife and ever his administering angel. After the death of her devoted husband she resigned the position as first assistant teacher in the school in which her husband had so recently been principal and returned to Franklin to live with her widowed mother. Notwithstanding all hearts went out in sympathy for her in her bereavement there was a sort of mingled joy at her return to her old field of labor, since it seemed a matter of impossibility to fill her place as a worker among her people. In the fall of 1881 she was elected again principal of the town school, which position she held for nine years.

As a temperance worker and lecturer in general the United States cannot boast of one more ardent. She served three years as president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Home Missionary Society, organized by Mrs. Marriage Allen, the wonderful messenger of England, four years as recording secretary of the county Sunday-school Union, one year as corresponding secretary of the Bethany Baptist Sunday-school Convention. She has organized a great many temper-