Page:Women of distinction.djvu/259

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
WOMEN OF DISTINCTION.
195

for the Anti-Slavery Standard and other papers, at the same time indulging very earnest youthful hopes that she might become an authoress. During the war she was sent, with a friend, by the Freedmen's Aid Society in Philadelphia, to teach the freedmen at Port Royal, on the coast of South Carolina.

They were located on St. Helena Island. She spent several years there and found the work most interesting. While there she held correspondence with Mr. White and his sister, with whom she had spent many happy hours during her school-days. It was at a suggestion by Mr. White that she published some articles on their life among the freedmen in the Atlantic Monthly, for which she was liberally remunerated.

On her return North she went to Boston, where she was engaged for several years in the work of the New England Freedmen's Aid Society. Here she enjoyed her correspondence with the freedmen's teachers, although suffering much from ill health. She was, however, able to do some literary work, translating some novels for Messrs. Scribner & Co, and also short stories for Scribner’s Magazine. She also wrote articles for the Boston Cormnonwealth and other papers.

Upon the breaking up of the Freedmen's Aid Society she went to Charleston, S. C, and taught school for one year, after which she returned to the North and remained in ill health for a long time. Upon improving in health she again attempted to teach in Washington, D. C, but after a short while she was thoroughly convinced that teaching was too great a taxation upon her strength.