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376 countless hours for the good of the survivors of the war. She was one of four women selected by the Board of Education of Chicago to represent them before the legislature of the state to help pass the Compulsory Education Bill, and it was passed through the fact that a large majority of the legislators were old soldiers and their affection for Mrs. Roby made voting for the measure she advocated a pleasant duty. She is the only woman ever made a member of the Lincoln Guard of Honor, of Springfield, Ill., an honor conferred on her through General Sherman, "For her many acts of devotion to the Martyred President's Memory." She became a member of the Chicago Academy of Science, was vice-president of the Women's National Press Association for Illinois, a member of the Nineteenth Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry and also joined the Society for the Advancement of Women, and the American Society of Authors. She had the care and oversight of supplying the Soldiers' Homes with books and magazines and periodicals, and she has constantly visited the homes in various parts of the country, looking after the comfort of the old soldiers, and when special legislation has been needed to right their wrongs or give them additional comforts, she has gone to the state legislatures and to Washington to secure such enactment. Through her efforts a memorial day was set apart in the schools for the reading of histories and stories of the war in preparation for Decoration Day itself. She has done a good deal of literary work under the pen name of "Miles Standish," and she has published one large volume entitled "Heartbeats of the Republic." America has hardly produced a woman of better courage and patriotism.

Born in Pike County, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1838. She was descended from the families of Stephen Cole, of Scotland, and Hannah Chase, of England. During the Civil War she was known as the "Banished Heroine of the South."