Page:Woman of the Century.djvu/723

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TODD.
TODD.

comment of an encouraging nature to the author, and for a few years her pen was busy. In 1857 she became the wife of Sereno B. Todd, of North Haven, Conn. Mr. Todd is a descendant of the Yale family, of which Elihu Yale, the founder of Yale College, was a member. They have two children, a son and a daughter.


TODD, Mrs. Mabel Loomis, author, born in Cambridge, Mass., 10th November, 1858. She is MABEL LOOMIS TODD. the daughter of the poet and astronomer. Prof. E. J. Loomis, and his wife Mary Alden Wilder Loomis, in the seventh generation of descent from John Alden and his wife Priscilla. Mabel was a precocious child. At the age of five she was laboriously printing her first blood-curdling novel, and singing airs. Her father taught her during the first ten years of her life. In 1868 the office of the "Nautical Almanac" was removed to Washington, D. C, and Professor Loomis moved his family to that city. Mabel entered the Georgetown Seminary, and studied botany and ornithology with her father, until she was seventeen. In 1875 she went to Boston to study music and painting, and became proficient in both. In 1879 she became the wife of professor Todd, professor of astronomy and director of the observatory of Amherst, Mass., and after marriage she continued her studies in art and music In 1882 her interest in astronomy was aroused, and she made an exhaustive study of the science. In 1887 she accompanied her husband, who had charge of the expedition to Japan to observe the total eclipse of the sun, and she gave him much valuable assistance. To her was intrusted the drawing of the filmy corona. She wrote accounts of the expedition for the New York "Nation," and contributed articles on Japan to "St. Nicholas," the "Century" and other magazines. In 1889 she rendered valuable aid in preparation for her husband's expedition to western Africa to observe a total solar eclipse. In 1890 she edited and arranged for publication the poems left by the late Emily Dickinson, the first volume of which passed through a dozen editions in less than a year. In 1891 she prepared a second volume of Miss Dickinson's poems, to which she contributed a preface. Recently she has given drawing-room talks on the life and literary work of that remarkable woman, as well as upon Japan and other subjects. She does a good deal of book reviewing for periodicals, as well as occasional sketches and short stories. She is interested in all work for woman. Her home is in Amherst She has one daughter, aged ten years.


TODD, Mrs. Marion, author, lawyer and political economist, born in Plymouth. N.Y., March, 1841. Her parents were educated New Englanders. Her father died when she was ten years old, and she was compelled to earn her living. MARION TODD. At the age of seventeen she began to teach school, and she remained in the ranks until she became the wife of Benjamin Todd. Her husband was an able speaker, and he induced her to go on the lecture platform. In 1879 she began to study law in Hastings College. San Francisco, Cal. Her husband died in 1880, leaving her with one child, a daughter. In 1881 she was admitted to the bar, and at once opened a law office. In 1882 she was nominated for attorney-general of California by the Greenback party of that State. Her nomination was the first of the kind, and she stumped the State, making speeches for the Greeback party. In 1883 she went as a delegate to the first national anti-monopoly convention, held in Chicago, III., and in 1884 she again attended the convention in the same city, in that year she attended the Greenback convention in Indianapolis, Ind., and served as a member of the committee on platform. She spoke in each campaign from 1883 to 1886. She then returned to California, to conduct a number of important law cases. She joined the Knights of Labor in Michigan, and