woman who is intensely interested in her race and sex and who has done more varied newspaper work than any other woman of her race in the country. This, gentle reader, is Mrs. N. F. Mossell, of Philadelphia, Pa. The ancestors of Mrs. Mossell, for three generations, were Philadelphians. Her parents, Charles and Emily Bustell, were raised in the faith of the Society of Friends, but they afterward joined the Presbyterian Church.
Her mother dying when she was an infant, Gertrude and her sister were reared without the tender knowledge of a mother's care. She attended the schools established by the Friends, also public schools, especially the Robert Vaux Grammar School, of which the noted Jacob C. White was teacher. While a pupil at this school she read an essay on "Influence" at commencement exercises which attracted the attention of Hon. Isaiah Wears and Bishop, then Doctor, B. T. Tanner. This essay was published in the Christian Recorder, of which Bishop Tanner was then editor. Leaving school at seventeen, she taught the Terry Road School, Camden, N. J., for one year; then the Wilmot School, at Frankford, a suburb of Philadelphia, for seven years. This work she gave up to marry Dr. N. F. Mossell, of Lockport, N. Y. During this time she contributed essays, stories and poems to the Recorder, the publication of which stamped them of unusual merit, as Dr. Tanner's literary standard was well known to be the most critical of all the Afro-American editors. Four years after marriage she assumed charge of the Woman's s Department of The New York Age, and Philadelphia Echo. She has written for the Alumni Magazine and the A. M. E. Review
