Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/380

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HERSOM.
HEWITT.
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He then resumed work and established himself in Portland, Me., where he soon acquired a practice which demanded all his time and energies. In 1881 Dr. Hersom went abroad for needed rest and died JANE LORD HERSOM. in Dublin, Ireland, one week after landing- Mrs. Hersom had read medical works to her husband during his sickness, and, enjoying them, continued to read when the need was past. Her husband had been aware of her special fitness, and had often told her she would make a fine physician. The knowledge of his confidence in her abilities acted as a stimulus, and with characteristic energy she began her studies with Prof. S. H. Weeks, of Portend, Me. In 1883 she entered the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia. After her graduation from that institution she began work in Portland, planning only for a small office practice. Her desires have been far more than realized. She has had a large and increasing practice from the first. She was elected physician of the Temporary Home for Women and Children, in Portland, which position she held for four years, until she was obliged to resign in order to attend properly to her other duties. She is a member of the American Medical Association, the State and County Medical Societies and also of the Practitioner's Club, of which she was elected president for 1892. She is an active member of the Woman's Suffrage Association. She became a woman suffragist through her exigence as a student and physician. One of her children died in infancy, and one daughter is living.


EMMA CHURCHMAN HEWITT. HEWITT, Mrs. Emma Churchman, author and journalist, born in New Orleans, La., 1st February, 1850. At three years of age she moved north with her parents, who settled on a farm in Rahway, N. J., afterward moving to Burlington, N. J., and later to Camden, in the same State, where she resided until several years ago, when she moved to West Philadelphia, Pa. She comes of a long line of cultured and educated people, and is a direct descendant of old John Churchman, who was prominent in the sect of Friends in his day. Mrs. Hewitt is a fluent French scholar, with a knowledge of several other modern languages. She began to write short stories at such a very early age that it has been quaintly remarked that she was "born with a pen in her hand." In 1884 she became a journalist and engaged with the "Daily Evening Reporter" of Burlington. N. J., where she labored until its change of management. In 1885, at the solicitation of the publisher of the "Ladies' Home Journal," she began a series of articles with the unique title "Scribbler's Letters to Gustavus Adolphus. The next year she received a call from the same publisher to the associate-editorship of the journal, which position she filled for four years. Notwithstanding her arduous and exacting work while occupying the editor's chair, she contributed regularly sketches, short stories and articles on domestic topics to at least a dozen other periodicals. Her "Kase in Conversation" first appeared in the "Ladies' Home Journal" under the title of "Mildred's Conversation Class." These articles have been published in book form (Philadelphia, 1887), and the volume, entitled Ease in Conversation," has gone into its third edition, and her " Hints to Ballad Singers" (Philadelphia, 1889) has had an extended sale. Her chief literary work is the "Queen of Home," (Philadelphia, 1889) treating in an exhaustive and masterly manner subjects of household interest from attic to cellar. She has contributed from time to time to the Philadelphia "Press," the "Christian-at-Work," the "Sunday-School Times," the "Weekly Wisconsin," the " Housekeeper," the "Ladies' Home Journal," "Babyhood," the "Home Guard," "Golden Days." "Our Girls and Boys," "Our Young Men," "Wide Awake," "Munyoti's Illustrated World," "Lippincott's Magazine." and a number of others. She is a regular contributor to