O'DONNELL, Miss Nellie, educator, born in Chillicothe, Ohio, 2nd June, 1867. Both her parents were natives of Massachusetts. Her father was born in Aubumdale and her mother in Brookline. She removed with them to Memphis, Tenn., while yet a child. She was educated in St. Agnes Academy, where she was graduated 17th June, 1885. In the following year she was an applicant for a position as a teacher in the public schools, stood the necessary examination and was appointed. In 1887 she was advanced to the grade of principal and took charge of a school in the thirteenth district, and has been connected with the county schools ever since. After two years in that capacity she was elected superintendent of public schools in Shelby county, Tenn. She was reelected in 1891. She has been remarkably successful. She has extended the average school-term from seven to nine months; has established sixteen high schools, eleven for white children and five for black; holds normal training-schools for teachers during each summer vacation, one for the white and one for the colored teachers, and holds monthly institutes during the months when the schools are in session. She is devoted to her profession. She believes in technical training and continued study. She demands from the teachers under her the same fidelity to duty that she exhibits. When she first assumed the duties of superintendent, she found but one-hundred-forty-eight schools open in the county; now there are two-hundred-seventeen. She introduced the higher mathematics and book-keeping, rhetoric, higher English, civil government, natural philosophy, physiology and the history of Tennessee as studies in the nigh schools. She added vocal music as a study in all the schools. She is a strict disciplinarian and a fine example of conscientiousness to duty.
OHL, Mrs. Maude Andrews, poet and Journalist, born in Taliaferro county, Ga., 29th December. 1862, in the home of her great-grandfather, Joshua Morgan. Her maiden name was Maude Andrews, In infancy she went with her parent to Washington, Ga., where she spent the years of her childhood in the home of her grandfather, Judge Andrews.
She received a liberal education and early showed her bent towards literature. Her first newspaper work was a series of letters from New York City to the Atlanta "Constitution," which at once won her reputation as a young writer of much promise. Her work has included society sketches, art and dramatic criticism, and brilliant essays on social subjects, reforms, and public charities She became the wife, at an early age, of J. K. Ohl, and both are now members of the staff of the "Constitution," in Atlanta, where they have made their home. They have one daughter. Mrs. Ohl has published poems in the "Magazine of Poetry" and in various journals. Her poems are widely copied. Her work in every line reveals the earnestness and conscientiousness that are her characteristics. Her life is full of domestic, literary and social activities, and her career h;is aided powerfully in opening up new fields of work for the intelligent and cultured women of the Southern States.
O'KEEFFE, Miss Katharine A., educator and lecturer, born in Kilkenny, Ireland. Her parents came to the United States in her infancy and settled in Methuen, Mass., removing later to Lawrence. Katharine attended for several years the school of the Sisters of Notre Dame, and later she took the course in the Lawrence high school, graduating with the highest honors of her class in 1873. She has taught in the Lawrence high school since 1875, and now fills the position of teacher of history, rhetoric and elocution. At an early age she manifested unusual cleverness in recitations, and, from the beginning of her career as a teacher, a forcible and lucid way of setting forth her subject She is, probably, the first Irish- American woman,