Woman of the Century/Mildred E. Nowell

NOWELL, Mrs. Mildred E., author and journalist, born in Spartanburg, S. C., 15th February, 1849. Her great-grandmother was a sister of Edward Fielding Lewis, who was married to Bettie MILDRED E. NOWELL. Washington, the sister of George Washington. Her husband's family claim far greater prestige of antiquity and high position. She has the family record dating from 1727 in the old family Bible, and family portraits in oil of an earlier date. She has spent much time in travel in the United States and Canada, and in the study of French, German and music. Reared in affluence and with a reasonable expectation that her inheritance would be ample for life, she, from childhood, loved literature for its own sake, unconsciously paving her way to more practical results in the future. After several years of married life, finding herself confronted by trials and reverses of fortune, thrown upon her own resources for the support of herself and two invalid children, she was forced to lay aside for a time her congenial literary pursuits and have recourse to other accomplishments that would bring speedier returns. She taught large classes in French, her pupils very creditably performing French plays in public. During many years she has successfully taught music, her pupils having numbered thirty-five at one time. They have rendered operettas and cantatas before large audiences. She has always devoted every possible moment to the loving care and companionship of her children, who are so delicate that most of her nights for ten years have been vigils over their sufferings. In all that hard, lonely fight with adversity, her faith and courage have never wavered. The vocation for which she was intended by nature and by culture is literature. Her love for her favorite calling has remained unabated during the years in which she has had so little time to spare for it, contributing in a somewhat desultory way to periodicals and magazines under assumed names.