Woman of the Century/Ella Loraine Dorsey

DORSEY, Miss Ella Loraine, author, born in Washington, D. C. in 185-. She is the youngest child of Mrs. Anna Hanson Dorsey, the pioneer of Catholic light literature in America. Born a few years before the breaking out of the Civil War, her early childhood was spent amid the stirring scenes of border life. The entire kin on both sides were in the Confederacy, with the exception of her father and her only brother, who received his death wound on the ramparts of "Fort Hell," where he had dashed up with the colors, caught from the color-nearer, and stood cheering his comrades to the charge. Miss Dorsey represents old and illustrious families of Maryland, counting among her kinsfolk and connections two signers of the Declaration of Independence, eight signers of the Act of the Maryland Convention of 26th July, 1776, two Presidents, seven Governors, thirty-six commissioned officers in the Continental Army, and a number of the young heroes of the famous old Maryland Line, who died on the field of honor at Long Island. Harlem Heights and Fort Washington. She began her literary career as a journalist and was for several years the " Vanity Fair "of the Washington "Critic." leaving that paper to take a special correspondence on the Chicago "Tribune." John Boyle O'Reilly and the Rev. D. E. Hudson, editor of the "Ave Maria," urged her into magazine ELLA LORAINE DORSEY. work. Her first three stories appeared almost simultaneously, "The Knickerbocker Ghost" and "The Tsar s Horses." in the "Catholic World." and " Back from the Frozen Pole," in "Harper's Magazine." "The Tsar's Horses" traveled round the world, its last reproduction being in New Zealand. It was attributed at first, because of its accuracy of detail, to Archibald Forbes, the war correspondent. Miss Dorsey's specialty is boys' stories. "Midshipman Bob" went through two editions in this country and England in its first year, and has been since translated into Italian. Scarcely second to it in popularity are "Saxty's Angel" and "The Two Tramps," while two poems printed in the "Cosmopolitan" have been received with marked favor. Miss Dorsey is the Russian translator in the Scientific Library of the Interior Department, Washington, D. C. Site is an enthusiastic member and officer of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and her later work is "Three Months with Small wood's Immortals," a sketch written for and read before the Washington branch of that society Last year four sketches. "Women in the Patent Office." "Women in the Pension Office." and "Women in the Land Office." were prepared by her for the "Chautauquan." They attracted much attention and secured wide recognition for the brave ladies who toil at their department desks. Her home is on Washington Heights.