father was nineteen and her mother sixteen years old which they were married in Nashville, Tenn., in August, 1839. Mary is the oldest of their family of seven children. During her youth the family lived in various places in Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. She was an intelligent child and was carefully educated. After leaving school, she became a teacher and taught until her marriage, 31st July, 1872, to Archie Thomas, part proprietor of the Springfield, Tenn., "Record." In 1883 Mr. Thomas sold that journal and moved to Sumter, Fla. They returned to Tennessee in 1884, and he repurchased the "Record," which he edited until his death, 10th October, 1888. After his death, Mrs. Thomas bought the "Record" and became both editor and publisher. She entered the journalistic field with diffidence, but she has made her journal very successful. She wrote for the press from youth, and was made an honorary member of the Tennessee Press Association in 1870. In 1873 she read a poem in the fall meeting of that body in Pulaski. She has written both poems and stories. Since her marriage she has done but little purely literary work, as her time was employed in the care of her daughter and several children of her husband by a former marriage. She has reared her family while working as proprietor, publisher, editor, clerk and proof-reader.
THOMPSON, Mrs. Adaline Emerson, educational worker and reformer, born in Rockford, Ill., 13th August. 1859.
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ADALINE EMERSON THOMPSON.
Her father was Ralph Emerson, a son of Prof. Ralph Emerson, of Andover. Mass., who was a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was a man of singularly strong character. With discernment he read the signs of the times, and, before it was a usual thing for girls to go to college, when most men were still questioning their fitness for training, either mentally or physically, he decided that his daughters should have the most liberal education that could be obtained. Adaline entered Wellesley College in 1877 and was graduated with honor in 1880. The thesis which she presented on that occasion showed that she possessed literary ability. After graduating she returned to her home in Rockford, Ill., and in 1883 became the wife of Norman Frederick Thompson. The first five years after her marriage were uneventful. Two children and the details of her home occupied her attention. Upon the removal of her household to New York, in 1888, her days of mental activity began. As president of the Woman's Club, of Orange, and also of the New York Associated Alumnæ, she has won recognition as a leader and presiding officer, but in the College Settlements' Association her organizing force his been most largely expended. Believing that the true way to reach and help the poor in the large cities is through the intimate personal contact which comes from living among them, and further, that the only way to solve the sociological problems pressing so heavily upon us is through knowledge gained at first-hand by thinking men and women, she has thrown her energy and enthusiasm into this home extension movement. As its president she has carried the association successfully through all the trials and difficulties which beset any new organization. She now lives in East Orange, N. J.
THOMPSON, Mrs. Elizabeth Rowell, philanthropist and temperance reformer, born in Lyndon, Vt, 21st February. 1821. Her maiden name was Rowell. Her childhood was full of the hardships of pioneer life, and she began, at the age of nine years, to earn money by serving as maid-of-all-work in a neighboring family, receiving a salary of twenty-five cents a week. Her early education was naturally neglected, but in later years she made up for the want of training that marked her childhood. She grew to womanhood, and in 1843 visited Boston, Mass. There she met Thomas Thompson, a millionaire, a man of refinement and culture. He was captivated by her remarkable beauty. The attraction was mutual, and they were married. With great wealth at her command, she was able to carry out her wishes to do good. She engaged in charitable work on a large scale, and her methods include the removal of the causes of misery, quite as much as the relief of misery after it is caused. Her expenditures to aid worthy men and women in getting education amount to over one-hundred-thousand dollars, and her other benevolent enterprises represent an outlay of over six-hundred-thousand dollars. She has regularly expended her income in benevolence. She has aided actively in the temperance reform movement, and her aid has often taken the form of large sums of money when needed to carry on some particular work. One of her contributions to the literature of temperance is a statistical work entitled "The Figures of Hell." Her husband cooperated with her until his death on 28th March, 1869. He left her the entire income of his great estate. Being childless, she was free to give full play to her generous impulses. She purchased Carpenter's painting of the signing of the emancipation proclamation by Lincoln in the presence of his Cabinet, paying twenty-five thousand dollars for it, and presented it to Congress. She paid ten-thousand dollars for the expenses of the Congressional committee appointed to study the yellow-fever plague in the South. She gave liberally to support the Women's Free Medical College in New York City. She founded Longmont, in the Rocky Mountains. In Salina county, Kansas, she gave six-hundred-forty acres of land and three-hundred dollars to each colonist settled on it. She spent a large sum in bringing out a " Song Service " for the poor.
