Woman of the Century/Florence Campbell Reed

REED, Mrs. Florence Campbell, author, born in Door Creek, Wis., 17th January, 1860. Her father's name is Harvey Campbell, and her mother's maiden name was Melissa D. Reynolds. The mother was a woman of fine taste and culture, and was known as an author in her early days. She excelled in story-telling, and her improvised tales to amuse her children are remembered vividly by her daughters. Many of them afterward found their way into the "Little Pilgrim" and other papers. A part of the childhood of Florence Campbell was spent in Lone Rock, Wis., her father having abandoned farming for the mercantile business. She clerked for him during vacation, being familiar with ledgers, bills and prices of everything when she had to climb on a stool to reach the desk. Receiving a certificate at a teachers' examination when only twelve years old, she planned to enter the field of pedagogics, and did so when she had scarcely more than reached her teens. She soon ceased to teach and entered the State University, the youngest student in that institution. She taught in various schools, most of the time as principal, for ten years. Her work was in Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas. FLORENCE CAMPBELL REED. She wrote a cantata, "Guardian Spirits," which met a favorable reception. Having given some time to the study of elocution and voice-training, she traveled in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois and brought out the cantata herself among school children. It was very successful, but her health failed, and she was compelled to give up so arduous an undertaking. Her record is one of hard work and many disappointments and discouragements. She has written stories, essays and poems, read proof, and done reporting, been her own seamstress and done housework, given entertainments as a reader, and battled bravely with many adverse circumstances. Her first book, "Jack's Afire" (Chicago. 1887), a novel, found a wide sale, and some of her poems have been extensively copied on both sides of the ocean. She has written for a great many periodicals, eastern and western. She became the wife of Myron D. Reed, and they now reside in Madison, Wis. She is doing her literary work parenthetically, as any home-maker must, but her husband being a poet, she finds perfect sympathy in all her ambitions and cooperation in her most congenial labors.