Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/522

Rh Julia Dean, one of our greatest American actresses.

Mrs. Curry's strongest characteristic is the harmonious co-ordination of intellectual and emotional power. Her dramatic instinct has developed into a deep insight into truth. She has done some strong creative work in the vocal interpretation of the dramatic and lyric spirits in literature, notably in her readings from Mrs. Browning's "The Rhyme of the Duchess May," old ballads, Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," and Rossetti's "Sister Helen"; of the epic spirit in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King"; in the blending of the epic and dramatic spirit in an adaptation from Homer's Iliad and modern epic poems.

Of Mrs. Curry as a reader of the Bible, Dr. William F. Warren, President of Boston University, has spoken unqualified appreciation. Of her reading of "The Story of the Passion of Christ, as told in the Gospels," a critic .says, "It is the apotheosis of all art, and reveals in art the reality of His life." As a teacher. Professor Lewis B. Monroe said of her, "She is the only one who has ever been able to take classes from my hands without losing their attention." And Professor J. W. Churchill said, "She is the greatest woman teacher of elocution in the country."

Mrs. Curry, while not a club woman, has held membership in the New England Woman's Club, Cantabrigia Club (Cambridge), Boston Browning Society.

Mrs. Curry is now editor of Expression, and has in its columns made an application of dramatic principles to platform work. She feels that her best years of work are to come.

USAN BREESE SNOWDEN FESSENDEN was born December 10, 1840, at Cincinnati. Her father, Sidney Snowden, was related through his mother to President Woolsey of Yale, President Cutler of Western Reserve, S. F. B. Morse, of telegraph fame, to Commodore Breese of the United States Navy, and to many other literary and scientific men. Mr. Snowden was a man of letters, remarkable for his fine rendering of Shakespeare, for his use of English, and for his eloquence. He died at the early age of forty-two. His wife, Eliza Mitchell, lived to the age of eighty. She was the daughter of Jethro and Mercy (Greene) Mitchell, both of well-known Quaker families. Jethro Mitchell was a native of Nantucket and a cousin of Maria Mitchell. He went to Cincinnati about 1830, and many of his descendants still live in that city. Through her grandmother, Mercy Greene Mitchell, Mrs. Fessenden claims descent from John Greene, of Warwick, from Roger Williams, from Governor Caleb Carr, and from other founders of Rhode Island.

At seventeen Mrs. Fessenden (then Susan Snowden) was graduated from the Cincinnati Female Seminary, being the youngest member of her class. Fond of study from her earliest years, she had also shown great power for giving out what she had learned. She began to teach in the seminary immediately after graduating, and continued to teach there until her marriage. She was married March 10, 1864, to John H. Fessenden, of Concord, N.H. Her three children—Cornelia Snowden, Elizabeth Mitchell, and William Chaftin—were born in Cincinnati, and until they had completed their education the mother's chief interest was in them and in her home life. "A genius for motherhood" is her children's description of her. In 1871 Mrs. Fessenden removed from Cincinnati to Sioux City, la. There she remained for eleven years, always taking an active interest in everything pertaining to that young and growing town. Its educational affairs were dear to her, its schools became clubs for study. Its philanthropic affairs, work for young girls, and plans for helping the poor and tempted were always in her mind. Just as in her earlier years she had not hesitated to express herself strongly on the abolition of slavery, she now hail strong convictions regarding woman's enfranchisement, help for the laboring classes, and prohibition of the liquor traffic. She wrote and spoke on all these subjects.

While living in Sioux City, it became necessary for her to assume the support of her three young children. Their education was the determined purpose of her life. Accordingly with fear and trembling, but without shrinking, she borrowed money and bought out a china and silverware establishment, and carried on