Representative women of New England/Etta H. Osgood
ETTA HALEY OSGOOD, the first President of the Maine Federation of Clubs, was born in Chatham, Carroll County, N.H. When she was two years old, her parents, Thomas Jewett and Lucretia Eaton (Colby) Haley, removed across the border to the town of Stow, Oxford County, Me., and, having been a resident of that State ever since, she felicitates herself on being a Maine woman. She was educated in the public schools, at Fryeburg Academy, and at Mount Holyoke Seminary, where she was enrolled as a student under her maiden name, Etta Haley, in the school years 1874-75 and 1875-76. Etta Haley's early lessons were conned in the town school of Stow, kept in the little red schoolhouse. That she appreciated the opportunities afforded by the higher institutions of learning is shown by the fact that at the age of sixteen, in order to secure them, she began teaching school. She continued to teach at intervals until her marriage in October, 1877, to Edward Sherburne Osgood, of Portland. Mr. Osgood was on the editorial staff of the Portland Arfius, and he encouraged his wife to enter the profession of journalism. She began by reporting conventions, society events, and so forth, and in recent years has devoted the greater part of her time to this work. She is now on the editorial staff of the Evening Express and Sunday Telegram.
When the club movement began, Mrs. Osgood was one of the pioneers. She has assisted in founding several clubs, and is considered an authority in matters relating to parliamentary law, her lectures on this subject being one of the results of her club and newspaper work. The following is a list of the offices she has held in various organizations; first president of the International Health Protective League; first president of the Maine Federation of Clubs: founder of the Mount Holyoke Alumna' Association of Maine: first chairman of Correspondence for Maine of General Federation of Women's Clubs and one of the directors; secretary of the Suffrage Association (serving ten years), also its vice-president and State organizer: a member of the New England Woman's Press Club; parliamentarian of the Maine Federation; commissioner from Maine to the At
lanta Exposition: vice-president of the Woman's Literary Union; founder and president of the Civic Club: State member of the Executive Committee of the National, and also of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.
Mr. and Mrs. Osgood have had three children—one son, who- died in infancy, and two daughters. The elder daughter is a graduate of Mount Holyoke Seminary, and the younger daughter is in the Portland High School. Although Mrs. Osgood has had many calls upon her time hi organizations and in her professional and business career, she has been a devoted wife and mother. She has a wide circle of friends.