Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/618

Rh In her absence she was elected to a position in the girls' high school, which she held until 1891, when she again went abroad. On her return to Atlanta she became principal of the Crew street school, one of the largest in the city. She has won distinction by her narrative and descriptive powers, and she has shown a capacity for a higher range of original and philosophic thought.

ROBERTS, Mrs. Ada Palmer, poet, born in North East, Dutchess county, N. Y., 14th February, 1852. Her father, Elijah Palmer, was a scholarly lawyer, who had poetical talent. His satirical poems, many of which were impromptu, did much to make him popular as a lawyer. From her father Mrs. Roberts inherited poetical talent. From him she received most of her early education, as her delicate health would not permit her to be a regular attendant in school.

When she was sixteen years old, her education was sufficient for her to teach a private school, her pupils having been her former playmates. She was married 31st January, 1878, and household duties, maternal cares and recurring ill health have kept her from doing regular literary work. Her poetical productions have not been intended for publication, but have come from her love of writing. She has published but few poems, and some of them have found a place in prominent periodicals, the "Youth's Companion," the New York "Christian Weekly" and others. Mrs. Roberts' home is in Oxford, Conn.

ROBERTSON, Mrs. Georgia Trowbridge, educator and author, born in Solon, Ohio, 2nd August, 1852. The ancestry of Mrs. Robertson's mother, Lavinia Phelps Missel, reaches back to the Guelphs. That of her father, Henry Trowbridge, is recorded in the "Herald's Visitation" as holding Trowbridge Castle, Devonshire, in the time of Edward First in the thirteenth century. The name Trowbridge is also frequently found in Revolutionary annals. During her girlhood Mrs. Robertson imbibed much of the honest, earnest thought of the New England settlers, among whom her early years were spent. At fifteen she became a

teacher in the Ledge district of Twinsburgh, Ohio, and two years later passed to wider fields of action, teaching in the graded schools and attending Hiram College. During her life as student and teacher she published various essays and poems. Her writings trended from the first in the direction of ethics, philosophy and nature. In 1875 she became the wife of George A. Robertson, an alumnus of Hiram College and a well-known journalist of Cleveland, Ohio. For several years she was an invalid. She recovered her health and is again at work, thinking and writing in the line of social and divine science. She is actively connected with the Ohio Woman's Press Association and various historical, literary, art and social organizations in her city. Her work is sometimes anonymous, but is known over her signature, "Marcia."

'''ROBINSON. Mrs. Abbie C. B.''', editor and political writer, born in Woonsocket, R. I., 18th September, 1828. Her father was George C. Ballou, a cousin of Rev. Hosea Ballou and of President Garfield's mother. Her mother's maiden name was Ruth Eliza Aldrich. She was a woman of ideas quite in advance of her time, brought up, as her ancestors had been, under the Quaker system of repression. The daughter inherited from both parents most desirable qualities of devotion, courage and mental strength. She was educated in her native town and in New England boarding-schools. She studied music in Boston and spent three years in Warren Seminary, R. I. She took the regular course in the institute in Pittsfield. Mass. In 1854 she became the wife of Charles D. Robinson, of Green Bay, Wis. He was the editor of the Green Bay "Advocate" and for many years one of the