Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/607

602 had scarcely more than reached her teens. She soon ceased to teach and entered the State University, the youngest student in that institution. She taught in various schools, most of the time as principal, for ten years. Her work was in Wisconsin, Iowa and Kansas.

She wrote a cantata, "Guardian Spirits," which met a favorable reception. Having given some time to the study of elocution and voice-training, she traveled in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois and brought out the cantata herself among school children. It was very successful, but her health failed, and she was compelled to give up so arduous an undertaking. Her record is one of hard work and many disappointments and discouragements. She has written stories, essays and poems, read proof, and done reporting, been her own seamstress and done housework, given entertainments as a reader, and battled bravely with many adverse circumstances. Her first book, "Jack's Afire" (Chicago. 1887), a novel, found a wide sale, and some of her poems have been extensively copied on both sides of the ocean. She has written for a great many periodicals, eastern and western. She became the wife of Myron D. Reed, and they now reside in Madison, Wis. She is doing her literary work parenthetically, as any home-maker must, but her husband being a poet, she finds perfect sympathy in all her ambitions and cooperation in her most congenial labors.

REESE, Miss Lizette Woodworth, poet, born in a country place near Baltimore, Md., 9th January, 1856. Her parents were French and German, and her blood has a dash of Welsh from her father's side. Her parents moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., when she was a child. They lived in that city only six months, when they removed to Baltimore, Md., where they have resided ever since. Miss Reese was able to read when she was five years old, and she read in childhood everything that came in her way, history, essays, novels, poems and religious biography. At the age of eight years she was reading Dickens and Thackeray. Her education was conducted on a

broad plan. She began to versify early, and her work showed unusual merit, even in her first attempts. She published a volume of verse, "A Branch of May," in 1887, and the most conspicuous critics and authors gave it a cordial reception. She is not a prolific writer. She is a deliberate worker, and her best work comes out at the rate of only three or four poems a year. Some of her most notable verses have appeared in " The Magazine of Poetry." She has recently published a second volume of poems, "A Handful of Lavender" (Boston, 1891). She is a teacher by profession and lives in Baltimore.

REESE, Mrs. Mary Bynon, temperance worker, born in Pittsburgh, Pa., 27th June, 1832, of Welsh parents. While she was a child, the family removed to Wheeling, W. Va.. where Miss Bynon had the advantages of a good seminary. Graduating in 1847, she became identified with the public schools of the Old Dominion, and for a time was one of three teachers in the only free school in the State, the Third Ward public school of Wheeling. That school was soon followed by others, in two of which she was employed. While yet a school-girl, she gave promise of poetic talent and wrote frequently for local papers. She was for many years a contributor to "Clark's School Visitor." After she became the wife of John G. Reese, she removed to Steubenville, Ohio, where the greater part of her life has been spent. During the Civil War her time was devoted to alleviating the sufferings of Union soldiers. Her pen was busy, and her best thought was woven into song for the encouragement of the Boys in Blue. She was poet laureate in her city, and New Year addresses, anniversary odes and corner-stone poems