Woman of the Century/Gertrude Strohm
STROHM, Miss Gertrude, author and compiler, born in Greene county, Ohio, 14th July, 1843, and has always lived in a country home eight miles from Dayton. She is the oldest of four children. Her paternal grandparents were Henry Strohm, born in Hesse Darmstadt, and Mary Le Fevre, a descendant of the Huguenots. Her mother, the late Margaret Guthrie, was the daughter of James Guthrie, who went from the East to Greene county in the early part of the century. Her mother was Elizabeth Ainsworth, whose first husband was Hugh Andrews. Miss Strohm's father, Isaac Strohm, has been engaged nearly all his life in Government service in Washington, D. C., first in the Treasury, then for sixteen years the chief enrolling and engrossing clerk in Congress, and latterly in the War Department. He has written much for the press. When a young man, he was a contributor to Mr. Greeley's "New Yorker," and wrote poems and sketches for "Sartain's Magazine," the "Southern Literary Messenger," and other periodicals. Gertrude attended school principally in Washington, but her studies were interrupted by ill health. Her first publication was a social game she had made and arranged, entitled, "Popping the Question." It was published in Boston and afterward sold to a New York firm, who republished it, and it was again brought out in an attractive edition for the holiday trade of 1891. She made three games for a Springfield. Mass., firm, the last called "Novel Fortune Telling," composed wholly of titles of novels. She has also published a book of choice selections, "Word Pictures" (Boston, 1875); Universal Cookery Book" (1887); "Flower Idyls" (1871), and "The Young Scholar's Calendar" 1891), Another line of compilation in which she has engaged is from the Holy Scriptures. She has made many reward cards and Sabbath-school concert exercises.