Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/248

243 fond of books and quick to learn. Her education was begun in the public schools of Orwell and Fair Haven, Vt., where her parents resided. In 1874 she entered the State Normal School in Albany, N.Y., and from there she went to the Syracuse University, where she was graduated with honors. Miss Dicklow's parents being in humble circumstances, she had to work her own way from beginning to end. After graduating she taught for two years and then entered the Woman's Medical College of Philadelphia, with the intention of taking up the practice of medicine. At the end of one year she was called to Kansas, and soon after the position of professor of modern languages in Ottawa University was offered to her, which she accepted. Miss Dicklow did not give up her studies at graduation but continued a close student and will receive the degree of Ph. D. from her alma mater.

DIEHL, Miss Cora Victoria, register of deeds, born in Laurelton, Union county, Pa., 19th January, 1869. When eleven years old she moved with her parents to Great Bend, Kas., where the family lived on a farm for five years. Her father, H. C. Diehl, having no son, shaped his daughter's education with the view of bringing her forward as a reformer. At the age of sixteen years she appeared at many public meetings of the Greenback party and delivered recitations. Her parents moved to Montrose, Col., where they lived a short time and then returned to Kansas. The daughter accompanied them and soon accepted a position in the office of the register of deeds in Great Bend. Later she was appointed deputy register, which position she filled for two years, when she resigned 1st January, 1890, to go to her parents in Oklahoma.

Miss Diehl joined the Fanners' Alliance and, though but twenty-one years old, became a leader and speaker. She was unanimously nominated by the convention of the People's Party in session in Guthrie for register of deeds for Logan county and was afterward endorsed by the Democrats. She conducted an aggressive campaign and, accompanied by her father, stumped the county. Her speeches showed ability and earnestness, and she got the largest majority of any one on the ticket. She has the distinction of being the first woman to hold office in Oklahoma, and also is the youngest woman in the country to conduct a political campaign in her own behalf.

DIEUDONNÉ, Mrs. Florence Carpenter, littérateur, born in Stockbridge Falls, Madison county, N.Y., 25th September, 1850. In early life her parents removed to Oshkosh, Wis., where her education was completed. In her writing as a school-girl was discerned exceptional excellence. After her marriage she resided for some years in Minnesota, and during that period published her first poems in the Oshkosh "Times" and "Peterson's Magazine." In 1878 she traveled extensively in Europe, and her descriptive letters, written for the papers of her own and other States, gained for her a reputation. "A Prehistoric Romanza" (Minneapolis, 1882), was the first poem she published in book form. She also wrote several cantatas, the most successful of which was "The Captive Butterfly." for which Prof. J. B. Carpenter composed the music. Her fondness for literary pursuits made her many social engagements burdensome, and her fondness for scientific and historical reading clashed with the attention which she felt it her first duty to give to her home, but by improving spare minutes during the last ten years she has written three prose works and many poems. Her descriptive style is vivid. She is a member of the Woman's National Press Association of Washington, D. C, vice-president of the Short Story Club and founder and president of the Parælia Circle, a conversational and literary order. Mrs. Dieudonné now resides in Washington, D. C.