Page:LA2-NSRW-5-0093.jpg



WILLARD

2085

WILLIAM

transferred to John Hart Willard, her son, and in 1838 she removed and settled in Hartford, Conn., there marrying Christopher C. Yates, with whom, however, she did not live happily. Subsequently she parted from him and reassumed the name of her first husband. In 1830 she made a tour in Europe, of which an account was published as Journals and Letters from France and Great Britain. From the profits of this publication she helped for a time to support a school for women in Athens, Greece, which she had founded. Besides her numerous published writings, which include a History of the United States, a Universal History in Perspective, Last Leaves of American History and Morals for the Young, she edited a geography and atlas, and wrote and issued a volume of poems, the best known perhaps of which is the song Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep. Mrs .Willard died at Troy, N. Y., on April 15, 1870.

Willard, Frances Elizabeth. This gentle Christian reformer and practical philanthropist is the best loved and most widely celebrated of all American women. To her devotion and trained ability is due the phenomenal growth of the Woman's Chris-5 tian Temperance • Union and very | largely of the pro-j hibition movement. ' Born at Church-ville, near Rochester, N. Y., on Sept. 28, 1839, she was fortunate in having parents of rare moral and intellectual character. To give their older children educational advantages, they removed to the college-town of Oberlin, Ohio. When Frances was seven they settled on a farm near Janesville, Wisconsin. A beautiful tract it was, half prairie, half forest. For ten years the family depended upon itself for society, and the mother stored her children's minds with elevating verse and Bible stories. At 17 Frances was sent to Milwaukee to school and afterwards to the Woman's College at Evanston, near Chicago. For the next 40 years this was her home. She became dean of her own alma mater, resigning in 1874 when the college was incorporated with Northwestern University.

Turning from the most attractive offers to go on with teaching or to enter journalism, she decided to go into the temperance movement, joining a little band of women without money or experience in Chicago. The matter was talked about, for she was a noted woman of proved leader-

ship in the educational world. To the W. C. T. U. she gave immediate impetus by the conversion of hundreds of men from drunkards to useful citizens. She consented to accept a salary sufficient to provide for her mother and herself and, finally, the modest gift of Rest Cottage, the home in Evanston, but her earnings as lecturer and writer she turned into the W. C. T. U. fund. Five years after beginning the work, Miss Willard was elected president of the national W. C. T. U., —an office she filled for 20 years. She insisted upon the adoption of a demand for woman suffrage by the organization on the ground that the ballot was the most effectual weapon to defend the home. To her, also, is due the fact that the W. C. T. U. practically is a unit politically. She took the position that little help was to be expected from the old parties. The Prohibitionists held their first national convention in 1884.

After 1880 Miss Willard was almost continually engaged in travel and in organizing states and foreign countries. The movement spread until at the time of her death in 1898, 35 nations had lined up under the white ribbon. In addition to" this work she wrote eight books, established and helped edit The Union Signal, inspired the Chicago organization to build the Woman's Temple at a cost of $1,000,000, to establish the W. C. T. U Home for working-women, a publication-office and national headquarters. All of this grew in 25 years from a beginning so small that Miss Willard could not always get money for carfare and lunches, while the national W. C. T. U. had a total income of only $i 200. In her annual addresses are to be found the history and the policy of the temperance movement of her time.

A scholarly, refined, reserved woman, Miss Willard was aggressive only in act. never in manner. She died on Feb. 18, 1898. A statue of her has been placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol at Washington, among those of presidents, statesmen and military heroes.

Consult her Life by Anna Gordon, her private secretary, published by the National W. C. T. U., Evanston, 111.

Will'iam I, the Conqueror, son of Duke Robert of Normandy, was born in 1027 or 1028, and became duke in 1035. His guardians had to fight to make good his claim to the dukedom, and more than once his life was in danger. On visiting England, where Edward the Confessor then reigned, William found Norman influence strong at Edward's court, and felt sure that the crown would pass to him. But the Wit-enagemote chose Harold as king, ignoring William's claims. The Conqueror at once invaded England, and won the battle of Hastings and the throne, Oct. 14, 1066. He at first ruled the conquered English

FRANCES E. WILLARD