Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/49

36 ters of New England in that early time, Mrs. Bailey, before her marriage, worked in the cotton-mills of Lowell and Manchester, earning thereby money to pay for a year of study at Derry Academy, as a finishing touch to the meagre common-school education of her girlhood.

The Rev. John B. M. Bailey died when his daughter Mary was seven years old, but the picture of his consistent life and noble character was indelibly stamped on her memory. She was reared by her brave and practical mother, who early taught her three children to be useful and economical. At the age of four Mary began to add her mite to the meagre income of a country minister's family by sewing hooks and eyes on cards and setting stones in jewelry, work which was given out from the factories near by and paid for in groceries and clothing. Throughout her girlhood she earned many new dresses and some luxuries by picking berries, making hair nets, and tending the neighbors' babies. She was always made to feel that character and education were the most desirable garments for children. The self-sacrificing mother contrived, with much plain living and clear thinking, to educate her daughters at Wheaton Seminary, from which Mary was graduated in the class of 1864.

The following year she married Mr. David A. Lincoln, of Norton, soon after moving to Boston an(i later to Wollaston, where for several years Mrs. Lincoln led a quiet life, devoted to her home and immediate circle of friends. Her only outside interests were her church, with its Sunday-school, and a literary club, which she was instrumental in organizing. Business reverses came, and Mrs. Lincoln, true to the training of early life, put her hand to the wheel, adding considerably to the income by sewing and other work for her neighbors. The following year, after much urging and hesitation, she was persuaded to accept the position of first principal of the Boston Cooking School. By her courteous manner, serene patience, executive ability, and thorough mastery of her work, both mechanical and theoretical, she brought the school at once to a high position, the success which attended it from the beginning being due in a great measure to her systematic and practical method of teaching. One of the first managers of the school said recently, "Mrs. Lincoln made the Boston Cooking School." She is often introduced as "not only the first principal, but the first principle of the school," and "the woman we all cook by," and so forth. After six years of faithful and arduous service she resigned her position, on account of the sudden death of her sister and the serious illness of her mother, who died five months latter.

A year before leaving the school she wrote the "Boston Cook-book," which added greatly to her reputation, and was at once pronounced "one of the most practical and reliable cookbooks ever written." It ha.s had a large circulation among housekeepers, and is used as a text-book in many of the leading schools, not only in America, but in England, Constantinople, and among the missionaries of China. Since leaving the confining care of the school, Mrs. Lincoln has been heard as a lecturer in more than two hundred different towns and cities, from Maine to California. She has given over seven hundred special lectures on cookery and domestic science, always by invitation, in addition to teaching the first class in the Boston Normal School of Cookery and teaching three years at Lasell Seminary. She has also written several new books and a score or more of pamphlet recipe books for food manufacturers, besides many articles for magazines and household papers, always by special request.

Her best known books are her "Boston Cook-book," "Carving and Serving," "The Peerless Cook-book," and the "Boston School Kitchen Text-book." The latter was the first complete book for use in the public school cooking classes. From the second month of its issue Mrs. Lincoln has been culinary editor and one of the owners of the American Kitchen Magazine. Since October, 189(S, she has written weekly articles for a syndicate, which are published in daily and weekly papers all over the country.

Over one hundred thousand copies of the "Boston Cook-book" have been sold, and it is still in great demand, having been revised in 1900, with the addition of about three hundred new recipes. Doubtless, many housekeepers