Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/384

 

A departure was made by the suffrage association in 1899 in having its convention in the late spring instead of the winter, the Thirty-first annual meeting being held in Grand Rapids, Mich., April 27-May 3. It was thought by many that this was an unfavorable season, as the audiences were not so large as usual, but in all other respects it was one of the most delightful of these many gatherings. The meetings vere held in the handsome St. Cecilia Club House, whose auditorium seats 1,200, and the official report, usually confined to bare details, contains the following account:

The music arranged by Mrs. Rathbone Carpenter and her efficient committee was throughout of the finest character and fully justified the reputation of Grand Rapids as a musical community. Mrs. W. D. Giddings, chairman of decorations, worked daily with different members of her committee in arranging the cut flowers and decorative plants generously furnished by different florists, so that the platform was beautiful and fragrant from beginning to end of the meetings. At the evening sessions the audience was seated by the help of young lady ushers under the management of Mrs. Marie Wilson Beasley.

The Bureau of Information, under the charge of Mrs. H. Margaret Downs; the Courtesies, chairman, Mrs. Delos A. Blodgett, and the opening reception on the first evening of the convention, chairman, Mrs. William Alden Smith, were ably managed. But, with the exception of the work devolving upon Mrs. Ketcham, the most constant and trying labor fell to the chairman of entertainment, Mrs. Allen C. Adsit, who cared for the housing of all the delegates and also of the Michigan friends in attendance.

Of the efforts of Mrs. Emily B. Ketcham the entire convention bore witness; it went to Grand Rapids upon her invitation, and upon her work for many months before its opening depended its success, which was unquestioned. At one of the evening sessions she was surprised by the presentation of a handsome souvenir of the occasion containing the signatures of the officers of the association, the speakers and many of the local workers. At the close of the first evening the National officers, assisted by Mrs. Ketcham, Mrs. William Alden Smith, Mrs. Julius Burrows and several of the