Woman of the Century/Ruby I. Gilbert

GILBERT, Miss Ruby I., business woman, born in Junius, N. Y., 1st December, 1851. She RUBY I. GILBERT. has been for many years recording secretary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Illinois and book-keeper of the Woman's Temperance Publication Association, and is a most interesting and fit survival in the growing group of business women which this modern time has developed. Miss Gilbert handles from two to three hundred thousand dollars a year, and has completely gained the confidence of all associated with her. She has the remarkable combination of a delicately poised conscience and a perfectly level head. Many persons might intend to be accurate as she is, but their intellectual make-up would render it impossible. Mathematical and ethical qualities must balance each other to produce such a result Miss Gilbert was engaged in clerical work in Freeport. Ill., when Miss Willard lectured there early in the crusade movement, and then first became especially interested in temperance work. The education of Miss Gilbert has been wholly in the public-schools, and in various relations that she has sustained she has received a diversified and thorough business training- In 1882 she came into association with Mrs. Mary B. Willard, who was at that time editor of the "Union Signal." She has since then sustained an intimate relation with Mrs. Willard, serving also as her legal business representative in this country after the American School for Girls was established in Berlin, Germany, in 1885. Miss Gilbert has escorted parties of young ladies to Mrs. Willard's school, and has in every way contributed to the utmost to insure the success of that excellent and growing enterprise. Her parents are of old New England stock. Her father, like his father before him, is a Baptist minister and was educated in the public schools and academies of western New York. He did pioneer work in Illinois and endured the privations incident to such a dedication of his life and energies. Her mother is a woman of superior mental vigor, always a leader in religious and temperance circles. The sacrifice and devotion demanded by the difficult life of itinerants have impressed themselves deeply on the character of their daughter. She went to Illinois with her parents in 1855, and was reared in the town of Mendota. The record of her life-work is closely and successfully identified with the white-ribbon movement.