Woman of the Century/Emma M. Connelly

CONNELLY, Miss Emma M., author, born near Louisville, Ky., where she lived until 1880. Her father was a Virginian who went to Kentucky with his parents in his early youth. The family was connected with that of the English Governor of Virginia. One branch remained loyal to the king, but the immediate ancestors of the young Kentuckian had borne an active part in the struggle for freedom. Her mother's family were from Pennsylvania. Both her grandmothers were of a Quaker family, Douthett, of Welsh descent. Her mother died in the daughter's infancy, the father in her girlhood. Her first effort was a school-girl story, never thought of for publication till after her father's death, when it was sent to the Louisville "Courier-Journal." EMMA M. CONNELLY. It was merely a story written because she liked to write, and so alarmed was she to see her thoughts in cold print, with her name attached, that she ran away to the country while it was being published. When Mr. Watterson afforded her the opportunity of the editorial incognito in a daily column on his paper, she gladly took the place, but, the unusual confinement of journalistic life proving too much father, she gave it up at the close of the year. Of her father's estate sufficient remains to allow her careful study and deliberation in writing. Her taste has led her more and more from the story to the didactic, yet, with the highest aims, she has never given herself over wholly to moralizing. Her "Tilting at Windmills" (Boston, 1888) surprised every one by its strength, its breadth of view, and the knowledge it evinced of human nature. Then followed her "Story of Kentucky" (Boston, 1891) for a historical series, "Stories of the States." Miss Connelly has but one near relative, a brother, John Allison Connelly, of Savannah, Ga. She makes her home mainly in New York City.