Woman of the Century/Carrie Stevens Walter

WALTER, Mrs. Carrie Stevens, educator and poet, born in Savannah. Mo., 27th April, 1846. She went to the Pacific coast with her parents ten years later, and has since lived in California. She inherited her poetic talent from her father, the late Josiah E. Stevens, a man of gentle, imaginative CARRIE STEVENS WALTER. temperament, who was at one time a leading Mason and prominent politician of California. Carrie is the oldest of six children, and at an early age showed her leaning toward literary pursuits. She was carefully educated in the Oakland Seminary, and at eighteen years of age was the valedictorian of the first graduating class of that institution. Many of her verses had already found their way into leading periodicals of the coast. She soon achieved a popularity that was unique, even in that period of exaggerated personality in California's social circles. Some years ago she entered the communion of the Roman Catholic Church. Her maternal love has found expression in numerous poems of exquisite tenderness. It is this sympathetic appreciation of children that has made Mrs. Walter one of California's most successful teachers. Several years ago she laid aside her school-work, in which she had labored for twenty years, and has since devoted to literature all the time and strength she could spare from the care of her four children. In 1886 her "Santa Barbara Idyl" was published in book form. She has done and is now doing much newspaper and magazine work. In her prose productions her descriptions of California scenery are inimitable. Her present home is in Santa Clara county.