Woman of the Century/Jane Kelley Adams

JANE KELLEY ADAMS. ADAMS, Mrs. Jane Kelley, educator, born in Woburn, Mass., 30th October, 1852. Her father was a member of a prominent firm of leather manufacturers. Her family had gone from New Hampshire, her mother being a descendant of the Marston family that came over from England in 1634. Mrs. Adams as a child showed great fondness for the schoolroom and for books. When three-and-one-half years old she "ran away" to attend the infant school, of which she became a regular member six months later. From that time her connection with school work, either as student, teacher, or committee-woman, has been almost continuous. As a student, she worked steadily, in spite of delicate health and the protests of physician and friends. She was graduated from the Woburn high school in 1871, and from Vassar College in 1875. In 1876 she became a teacher in the high school from which she was graduated, leaving in 1881 to become the wife of Charles Day Adams, a member of the class of 1873 in Harvard, and a lawyer practicing in Boston. Since her marriage, as before, her home has been in Woburn and although a conscientious housekeeper and the mother of two children, she has found time within the last ten years, not only to have occasional private pupils, but also to identify herself fully with the public work of her native city. In 1886-7 she was president of the Woburn Woman's Club. Within that time she organized three parliamentary law clubs among her women friends. Later, she was one of the founders of the Woburn Home for Aged Women and was one of its vice-presidents. She has served as a director and an auditor of the Woman's Club, as president of a church society, and as chairman of the executive committee of the Equal Suffrage League. In 1888 she was elected to a position on the Woburn school board, and in 1890 served as its presiding officer. In the spring of 1891, feeling from her work on the board of education the great need the students had of instruction in manual training, she was instrumental in establishing classes in sewing, sloyd and cooking, which were largely attended. Besides her work in her native town, Mrs. Adams has found time to be active in the various societies for college-bred women in the neighboring city of Boston. She is of a social nature, has a great interest in her husband's work, and it is not impossible that she will become a student of law.