mother of Miss Frances E. Willard. Miss Norton's maternal ancestors, the Hills, the Thompsons and the Morrills, of New Hampshire and Vermont, were among the foremost citizens and patriots of
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LAURA A. SUNDERLIN NOURSE.
their time. Her great-grandfather, Abraham Morrill, was a member of Stark's famous brigade in the battle of Bennington. Miss Norton received her education through study at home and in some of the best private schools of Boston, Mass. She spent the five years, 1886 to 1891, in Europe. During the first year she studied chiefly in Berlin. She spent some months in St. Petersburg, traveled in
Germany and Italy, where she paid especial attention to art, and studied in excellent French families in the jura and in Lausanne. She has also traveled in England, Holland, Switzerland, Belgium and
France, and resided three-and-a-half years in Paris, a student, under private professors and in the Sorbonne and College de France, of the French language and literature, which is her specialty. She
has taken extended courses in the Sorbonne and College de France in English literature, in Italian history and art, and the political history of Europe, but has devoted most of her time and energies to a study of the French poets, philosophers, moralists, dramatists, critics and novelists, from the earliest times to the present. She speaks French with ease and purity. She is a member of the church connected with the American Chapel in Paris, and her sympathy with humanity is broad and deep. Miss Norton wields a facile pen, excelling in thought, and in clear, terse and graceful expression. Her productions have been accepted by the "Atlantic Monthly," Boston "Transcript," New York "Observer and other journals. Her home is with her parents in Beloit, Wis. Since her return, in 1891,
to her native land, she has devoted herself to the upbuilding of her health and to the preparation of courses of lectures on French literature, to be delivered before literary clubs and classes.
NOURSE, Mrs. Laura A. Sunderlin, poet, born in Independence, Allegany county, N. Y., 9th April, 1836. She is a daughter of the late Dr. Anthony Barney, one of the pioneers in Allegany county, a man of taste and culture and a successful physician. Laura was the seventh child in a family of thirteen children. She was educated in the public schools of Independence. In 1855 she became the wife of Dr. Samuel Sunderlin, of Potter county, Pa. Two daughters and a son were born to them. They removed to Grand Mound, Iowa, after meeting financial reverses, and there her husband practiced until they removed to Maquoketa, Iowa. In 1881 they removed to Calamus, Iowa, where they lived until her husband's death, in 1886. Mrs. Sunderlin in 1888 became the wife of Dr. William Nourse, of Moline. Ill., and her home is now in that city. In childhood her poetical talents manifested themselves strongly, and some of her earliest verses were printed in the "Christian Ambassador," of Auburn, N. Y. Throughout her life she has continued to write poetry, and her later works show the finish and perfection that come of age and experience. In 1876 she published a volume of her prose and verse, "Pencilings from
Immortality. She was a regular contributor to a number of newspapers. Between 1881 and 1886 she contributed a series of important articles on the science of life in the "Liberal Free Press," published in Wheatland, Iowa. She has recently published an important long poem, entitled "Lyric of Life" (Buffalo, 1892).
NOWELL, Mrs. Mildred E., author and journalist, born in Spartanburg, S. C., 15th February, 1849. Her great-grandmother was a sister of Edward Fielding Lewis, who was married to Bettie
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MILDRED E. NOWELL.
Washington, the sister of George Washington. Her husband's family claim far greater prestige of antiquity and high position. She has the family record dating from 1727 in the old family Bible,
