Representative women of New England/Effie M. F. N. Hartwell

by Mary H. Graves

EFFIE M. F. HARTWELL

EFFIE MARION FRANCES NEEDHAM HARTWELL.—In every city and town of New England, safe to say, at the present time women are to be found quietly and earnestly striving to establish better social conditions, conforming to higher ideals. Fitchburg, Mass., is no exception to this, and a leader among its women workers is Mrs. Hartwell, whose name in full appears at the head of this article.

Her father. Colonel Daniel Needham, was born in Salem, Mass., of good Quaker stock, an energetic, active nature, positive in opinion, and always taking his full share of the business of the State and local affairs. He married Miss Caroline Augusta Hall, of Boston, a woman of charmingly attractive personal character. Their fourth child, Effie Marion Frances, was born in Groton, Mass., January 9, 1852. The family removed to Queechee, Vt., in 1855, living there among the mountains until Effie was twelve years of age, when they returned to their old home town. Groton was one of the academy towns of New England^ which, before the establishment by law of high schools in all the larger towns, were centres of learning and refinement. For a century or more the Lawrence Academy in Groton held high rank in its class, and here Miss Needham acquired a solid grounding in education, which was supplemented by a year of study at the Prospect Hill School in Greenfield, Mass., and a season at the Misses Gilman^s finishing school in Boston. From 1869 to 1877 she resided in Boston, and on October 23 of this latter year she was married to Harris Cowdrey Hartwell. Her home has since been in Fitchburg. Two sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. Hartwell, namely: Norcross Needham Hartwell, December 15, 1880; and Harold Hall Hartwell, May 6, 1891.

Mr. Hartwell was a native of Groton and an alumnus of Lawrence Academy. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1869. He studied law in Fitchburg, and was admitted to the bar in 1873. He was Representative from Fitchburg in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1883, 1884, 1885, and a State Senator in 1887, 1888, 1889, being president of the Senate in 1889. His untimely death in 1891 cut short a career of unusual promise. In Mr. Hartwell’s public and official life his wife was his strong supporter and efficient help, and his manly qualities and public position undoubtedly quickened her natural executive ability and strong desire to serve others. She has been identified with many of the best institutions of her city. She was the first president of the Fitchburg Woman's Club, continuing in office for six consecutive years; and during that time, under her vigorous administrative ability, the club took rank among the highest of the State in solid educative work, healthy growth, and steadily increasing value to its members, becoming one of the acknowledged forces of the city. Mrs. Hartwell was a director of the Massachusetts State Federation of Women's Clubs, and has served on several of its committees. She is the vice-president of the Old Ladies' Home Corporation, the president of its Ladies' Benevolent Society, and one of the stanchest supporters and workers for this useful institution, which has, from a small but earnest beginning, grown to own its large and commodious brick home, housing and providing for fifteen or twenty inmates.

Taking an interest in everything tending to the advancement of woman, she is a stanch advocate of suffrage for her sex on an equality with male suffrage. During the existence of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Fitchburg, Mrs. Hartwell was a personal worker, untiring in her efforts to keep it to the jmrpose indicated by its name. She is a director in the Benevolent Union (the Associated Charities organization in Fitchburg), and is a most active working member of the Baldwinsville Hospital Cottage Auxiliary, a society formed to aid the partially State-supported hospital for epileptic children at Baldwinsville, Mass. She is also a warm frieml and helper to the Children's Home, another of the charitable and practically helpful institutions of her city.

Mrs. Hartwell has always been an earnest Unitarian in her religious belief and affiliation, and has been among the foremost in the First Parish Church of Fitchburg in all its activities, giving unstintedly of her time and means to promote its best welfare, and filling for more or less extended time the various church appointments usually enjoyed by women.

In sinnming up, we may .say that conspicuous executive ability, indomitable energy and persistend a clear and broad vision, great tact, loyalty to friends and to purpose, and painstaking fidelity to any matter in hand are Mrs. Hartwell 's characteristics, and give the key to the success she has attained in good works. Such women mean more to their surroundings than can be told in words or measured perhaps by and of our common standards. Their number is increasing among us, and in large degree owing to examples like that of Mrs. Hartwell, which are a steady inspiration both for the present and the future.