Page:Women of distinction.djvu/177

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WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.
127

should be known not b}' the color of their faces, but by their intellect and moral standing. After the meeting she received the warm grasp of many a hand, and as she goes forth again to her work she may be assured she leaves behind her an added circle of friends to remember her in prayer and kindly interest.

For four years the children of that State had paid her salary as teacher in the State University; so she found as well as made many warm friends not only for herself and work, but for the race. A private letter to a friend in Maine, in which Miss Cook spoke x>f the oppression of her race, was published in the Home Mission Echo, Augusta, Maine, August, 1892. When she returned to her work the teachers and students received her with an ovation which she nor they will ever forget.

May, 1890, she was requested by the same women of Boston to come to the Baptist Anniversaries, which met in Chicago, and represent their work. She did, much to their satisfaction. The best accommodations in that city were hers at their expense.

In 1890 she resigned her position at the State University, against the protest of the trustees, but she thought of taking a course in medicine after needed rest was taken. But, alas! that boon was not to be hers, for in September, while attending the National meeting in Louisville, she was stricken with the sad intelligence that her mother had been paralyzed. Being compelled to give up her plans for studying medicine, she accepted a position with Rev. Robert Mitchell as teacher of Latin and science in the Simmons Memorial College, Bowling Green, Ky. Her burdens seemed to increase, for shortly after the affliction befell her mother her father sickened