Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/552

Rh beauty and loveliness of character, the wife of Jonathan Edwards, was the daughter of the Rev. James Pierpont, of New Haven. Her mother, Mrs. Mary Hooker Pierpont, was daughter of the Rev. Samuel2 and Mary (Willett) Hooker and grand-daughter of the Rev. Thomas1 Hooker, of Hartford, and of Captain Thomas Willett, sometime of Plymouth Colony and later the first Mayor of New York City.

Addison Tuttle Drake for many years was interested in the iron and foundry business in Sturgis, Mich. He served as Quartermaster of the Eleventh Michigan volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, and at its close was honorably discharged with the rank of Captain. He was an earnest advocate of temperance and an active member and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal church. For about eight years and till within a few months of his death he held a position in the War Department in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Drake is survived by his wife Catherine and five children, namely: Stella E. P., the subject of this sketch; Edward Edwards, manager for the Pacific coast territory of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company of New York; Caroline E. Bailey, a widow, of San Francisco, who has two sons, Edwards and Leonard; Katherine M., wife of W. R. Herbert, of San Francisco, who has a son, Claude Drake, and a daughter, Stella Marguerite; and Jeanne Ogden, wife of Edwin M. Miller, of Salt Lake City, Utah, who has two daughters, Elizabeth and Golda.

Stella E. P. Drake was educated in the public schools of Sturgis, Mich. At the age of twenty-three she removed to Kalamazoo, where she improved her opportunities for intellectual culture by joining study classes in history, art, and literature, conducted by James and Lucinda H. Stone, teachers of rare gifts and attainments, also receiving private instruction from Mrs. Stone, whom at one time she served as secretary. The intimacy thus fostered yielded to the eager student large returns in the way of liberal education. Socially she was a welcome and helpful presence, often assisting with her fine elocutionary powers at local public entertainments, acting for one year as secretary of the Ladies' Library Club, and also serving for some time as chairman of its Miscellaneous Committee. After a few years of married life it became necessary for her to support herself, an entirely new experience. This led her to resume her maiden name, by which she has ever since been known. In 1896 Mrs. Drake came East to join the army of self-supporting and self-respecting women. She was equipped for the battle with courage, a firm will, and both natural and acquired ability. Numbering among her personal friends, besides Lucinda H. Stone, above mentioned (now deceased), such women as Frances Willard, Mary A. Livermore, the Rev. Anna Shaw, the Rev. Caroline Bartlett Crane, and Alice Ives Breed, she did not lack sagacious counsel and kindly intercession.

After working for some months for various publishing houses, she became connected with the Boston agency of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and in 1900 succeeded Mrs. M. A. F. Potts as manager of its women's department, the first to be organized in connection with any life insurance company in Boston. Under her management this department has grown to be a factor in life insurance recognized by the different companies as well as by the insuring public at large. In training women for the profession of life insurance, to the the work intelligently and conscientiously, and thus with a success gratifying to all concerned, Mrs. Drake has shown herself an adept. As shown from the unanimous testimony of her associates, she possesses in a marked degree tact, dignity of character, a keen sense of honor, and exceptional qualifications for directing the work of others, being one of the few to whom authority means nothing more or less than the courteous and appreciative recognition of the rights and interests of those who act under her instructions.

Mrs. Drake is a member of the Church of the Disciples, and has been a worker along charitable lines. She belongs to the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, and she retains her membership in the above mentioned Ladies' Library Society and also in the Twentieth Century Club of Kalamazoo, of which she was one of the founders.

Of the Aaron Burr Legion, founded by