self-sustaining and permanent institution. Mrs. Hoff- man has proved herself also the friend of struggling genius, for it was in her residence on Fifth Avenue that the charming operatic favorite, Emma Abbott, was introduced to the public of New York, and thus advanced on her career. Five-hundred dollars of the money subscribed in order that Miss Abbott might receive instruction in Eu came from Mrs. Hoffman’s ready purse, and it was through her instrumentality that the voice of the future prima donna was secured for the choir of Dr. Chapin’s church, before she entered fully upon her public career. Still preserved by some of Emma Abbott's friends, as a choice memento, is a neat card, upon which are the words, ‘‘Charity Enter- tainment, in aid of the Chapin Home Fund, at the house of Mrs. George Hoffman, No. 599 Fifth Avenue. On Tuesday evening, February aist, 1871. At eight o'clock. Tickets $5.00; Admitting Two." The check for $500.00 given to the treasurer, the late D. D. T. Marshall, represented the first actual cash procured as funds for the Chapin Home, and this card also represents the date when Emma Abbott was first seen and heard by a New York audience. It was the stepping-stone to her success, and the first round also of the ladder by which the Home attained its permanency and _ prosperity. Mrs. Hoffman is still doing her part of the world’s work, as a philanthropist, with fidelity and a tender ee which disarms foes and wins lasting friend- ships. Mrs. Hoffman resides in New York City.
HOGUE, Mrs. Lydia Evans, educator, born in Crawford county, Pa., near Meadville, 14th April, 1856. Her maiden name was Evans. Her father, Henry Harrison Evans, was the son of Peter and Elsie Evans, of Crawford county. Peter was born
in. Lancaster county, of Welsh descent. — Elsie “Hadley was a native of Chautauqua county, N. Y., and a cousin of Governor Fenton. Mrs. Hogue's mother, Mary Kemble Evans, was a native of East Liverpool, Ohio, of English descent and a relative of Mad Anthony Wayne. When Lydia was eight years old, her father sold his farm and moved to Tidioute, Pa., to engage in the mercantile business and oil speculation. In the ‘‘oily days’’ of that village she was kept in private schools under the best teachers. At eleven years of age she was sent to Cattaraugus county, N. Y., where she was grad- uated in gymnastics at the age of thirteen, and pursued piano music and literary and scientific studies. While at home in vacation, the board- ing hall of Chamberlain Institute was burned, and she and her sister entered the Pennsylvania State Normal school in Edinburgh, where she was gradu- ated in 1875. After graduation she began to teach in Grandintown. The next year she was called to the high school of Tidioute, where she taught for eight years. In 1885 she was elected preceptress of the high school of Oil City, which place she resigned in 1886 to become the wife of Prof. S. F. Hogue and the preceptress of Defiance College, with Dr. Hogue as president. That school was crippled in finances; and they left it to accept positions in the State Normal School in California, Pa. In 1888 and 1889 they laid the foundation of Redstone Academy, in Uniontown, Pa. In 1890 they accepted the presidency and preceptorship of Monongahela College, in Jefferson, Pa., where she is now laboring. In her spare moments Mrs. Hogue writes for journals, and is preparing a text-book on calisthenics and gymnastics. She was graduated in the first class of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, in 1882, and attended the lectures. She was a student in the school of languages, afterwards the college of liberal arts, in Chautauqua for a number of years. Her work in the class-room is of the best character. She has taken the degrees B.E.D., M.E.D. and A.M. She has one son, Frank William Hogue.
HOLCOMBE, Mrs. Elizabeth J., physician, was born 19th August, 1827. She is related on the side of her maternal grandmother to Elias Hicks, the founder of the Unitarian branch of the Society of Friends. In her third year she was sent to school and at fifteen was a teacher, receiving a dollar a week and feeling very rich. After graduating from the State Normal School in Albany, N. Y., she became the wife of Dr. J. W. Justin, a young phy- sician of promise and enthusiasm. While readin to him from his favorite authors, she first deriv that ion for the study of medicine which led her, after his early death, to devote to it all her spare time. Her two children had to be provided for, and for fourteen years she filled the position of pre- ceptress in the union free school and academy in Newark, N. Y. While there an urgent appeal came to her to transfer her connection to the Elmira high school, with the promise of a much larger income. The Newark board of education refused to accept her resignation, and offered to double her salary if she would remain. In 1864 she became the wife of Rev. Chester Holcombe, the father of the Hon. Chester Holcombe, late secretary of legation to China. After the death of her second husband and at the age of forty, she began in earnest the profes- sional study of medicine. After her graduation from the Woman's Medical College in Philadelphia, she was appointed resident physician to the Woman's Hospital, filling, at the same time, the position of lecturer in the training school for nurses. There she remained three years. She then entered upon a private practice in Syra- cuse, N. Y., where her daughter, who had be- come the wife of Rev. George Thomas Dowling, pastor of the Central Baptist Church of that city, resided. Soon after that her son, Dr. Joel Justin,
