Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/696

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
STOCKHAM.
STODDARD.
691

acted upon. Her life is wrought of good deeds, her theories are known by their practical application, and her charity is full of manifestation. Her home is in Evanston. Ill.


STODDARD, Mrs. Anna Elizabeth, journalist and anti-secret-society agitator, born in Greensboro, Vt., 19th September, 1852. Her father was David Rollins, of English descent. Her mother was a Thompson, a direct descendant of the Scotch who settled in the vicinity of Plymouth, Mass. The family removed to Sheffield. Vt., when she was six years of age, and at eleven she was converted and joined the Free Baptist Church. Her parents then moved to Cambridge, Mass., where she had an excellent opportunity to gratify her love of books and study. Foremost in Sabbath-school and other church work, she was recognized as a leader among her young associates. ANNA ELIZABETH STODDARD. In 1880 she became the wife of John Tanner, jr. of Boston, an earnest Christian reformer and strongly opposed to secret orders. He died in September, 1883, and she went south to engage in Christian work. In December, 1885, she became the wife of Rev. J. P. Stoddard, secretary and general agent of the National Christian Association, with head- quarters in Chicago, 111. With her husband she has labored in several parts of the country along the lines of reforms. Always an advocate of temperance, she united at an early age with the Good Templars in Massachusetts, and occupied every' chair given to women and became a member of the Grand Lodge. Finding that most of the time during the meetings was spent on trivial matters of a routine character, to the exclusion of practical, aggressive work against the liquor traffic, she came to the conclusion that it was a hindrance rather than a help to true gospel temperance work. She severed her connection with the order and gave her energies to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which had just come to the front. She has with pen and voice actively espoused that reform, organizing in different parts of the South Woman's Christian Temperance Unions and Bands of Hope. Having been located in Washington, D. C. for a year or more, she was led to establish a mission- school for colored children, to whom she taught the English branches, with the addition of an industrial department and a young ladies' class. A Sabbath-school was organized in connection with that work, with a system of house-to-house visitations, and a home for the needy and neglected children of that class was established, largely through her efforts. Since January, 1890, her residence has been in Boston, Mass. There her labors have been numerous, the most important of which is the publishing of a monthly paper for women, called "Home Light," designed to encourage those who are opposed to secretism and to enlighten others as to the evils of the same. The financial responsibilities have rested entirely on her from its inception. She espouses the cause of woman suffrage and takes an interest in all the reforms of the day, believing that to oppose one evil to the neglect of others is not wise nor Christian.


STODDARD, Mrs. Elizabeth Barstow, author, born in Mattapoisett, Mass., 6th May, 1823. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Barstow. She received a thorough education in various boarding-schools and in her school-days showed her bent towards poetry and literature in general. In 1857 she became the wife of Richard Henry Stoddard, the author. Soon after her marriage she began to publish poems in all the leading magazines, and ever since she has been a frequent contributor. Her verses are of a high order. She has written for intellectual readers alone. She has never collected the numerous poems she has published in the periodicals, although there are enough of them to fill a large volume. In addition to her poetical productions, she has published three remarkable novels: "The Morgesons" (New York, 1862); "Two Men" (1865), and "Temple House" (1867). Those books did not find a large sale when first published, but a second edition, published in 1888, found a wider circle of readers. They are pictures of New England seen fry and character, and they will hereafter become standard works. In 1874 she published "Lolly Dinks's Doings." a juvenile story.


STOKES, Miss Missouri H., temperance worker, born in Gordon county, Ga., 24th July. 1838, in the old home of her maternal grandfather, Stevens, which had been occupied by the missionaries to the Cherokee Indians. Her paternal grandfather, Stokes, was a native of Ireland, who fought on the side of the Colonies in the Revolutionary War, and at its close settled in South Carolina. His family was a large one. The Stevenses were planters, and the Stokeses were professional men. Rev. William H. Stokes, a Baptist clergyman and an uncle of Miss Stokes, edited in 1834-1843 the first temperance paper ever published in the South. Her father was a lawyer and in those pioneer days was necessarily much away from home. He was killed in a railroad accident, while she was yet a child. She was tutored at home until she was thirteen years old, with the exception of several years spent in Marietta, Ga. Her mother and her sister were her teachers. The family moved to Decatur, Ga., where she attended the academy. She then became a pupil of Rev. John S. Wilson, principal of the Hannah More Female Seminary, from which institution she was graduated after a three-year course in the regular college studies. In 1853 she became a member of the Presbyterian Church. She had