Musicians and composers thrive in this salubrious environment. Daisy Wood Hildreth and Katherine Glen Kerry are, I believe, among the best known. Each has successful songs to her credit. Mrs. Frederick Bentley, a clever musician and critic, has helped her state culturally and has financially fostered impecunious talent into national floresence.
The State has several women editors who are known beyond its borders. Helen Maring Samsel, herself a poet of promise and distinction, conducts the commendable verse magazine, "Muse and Mirror." Idella Purnell, also a distinguished poet, is editor of "Palms." Mable Clelland, a contributor to many magazines, is now in charge of "The Western Woman," a monthly periodical devoted to women's interests.
In a country of great natural beauty and resources, it is inevitable that the romantic and poetic impulse should prosper. Cordons of perennially white peaks, evergreen forests and wide ocean-moors, favored by quickening rains and blessed with brilliant sunlight, reflect their strength and loveliness in the aspirations of their human neighbors. Poets a-plenty are here. Some of them have found a welcome in leading editorial sanctums, and a few have published books of poems.
Fiction writers, too, feel the spur of this northland toward imaginative endeavors; and non-fiction writers have some notable names in their ranks. Mrs. Otis Floyd Lamson and Audrey Wurdemann are scintillant members of the local branch of the League of American Pen-Women. Esther Shepherd has compiled a collection of Paul Bunyan tales which has been most favorably received. Washington claims Belle Burns Gromer, a brilliant short-story writer and Emma-Lindsay Squier, the well-known author and naturalist. Ella Higginson, a celebrated writer, now lives near Bellingham.
With this worthy record gracing its adolescence, is it too optimistic, think you, to prophesy for our young State a maturity of brilliant feminine achievement?
Activities of Washington Women
By Dr. Helen Norton Stevens)
(Editor of "The Bulletin")
About thirty-two years ago, the Washington State Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in the city of Tacoma. The nucleus was several women's clubs scattered over a new state, with a few earnest-minded women agreeing to bring
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