"SHE FLIES WITH HER OWN WINGS"

Delivered to the State Federation of Women’s Clubs, this speech is a narrative history of the club movement, with a surprising twist: Scott Duniway suggests that women’s clubs were organized as a way to quell the Prohibition “boomerang” (her term for the counterproductive effect that she believed Prohibition had on the cause of equal suffrage), essentially by providing alternative avenues for women’s civic and political impulses. Both here and in Path Breaking, Scott Duniway credits this “logical and necessary” idea to her close friend, Abigail Howard Hunt Stuart, who, almost thirty years earlier, had confided her rationale for starting the Woman’s Club of Olympia as an opportunity for “women who oppose the Suffrage Movement (or think they do) . . . to divest themselves of their prejudices.” ((212; see also About Scott Duniway n. 21.))

Divestiture would be a rocky and incomplete process. Scott Duniway comments here that she often was “publicly reprimanded” for interjecting “telling shots for Equal Suffrage” into club meetings. The national federation of women’s clubs assiduously dodged the question. ((“Eminent Women I Have Met” n. 3.)) Nonetheless, that Abigail–who certainly was shrewd, if sometimes impolitic–felt sufficiently comfortable to air these sentiments publicly at a state-wide gathering of club representatives speaks to the distance that the club movement in Oregon had traveled in nearly twenty years. ((Some corroboration comes from Sara Bard Field (1882-1974), a renowned poet, Christian socialist, and third-generation suffragist (also companion and eventual wife of Charles Erskine Scott Wood), who, in her late twenties, became the state organizer for the successful 1912 campaign. She personally was not keen on the clubs because they tended to study “piffling” things. In hindsight, however, she thought they had been “a help” in promoting woman suffrage, and in a “right on the surface,” not even “sub rosa” way (229, 240).))

This thirteenth annual convention of the Federation met in Hood River. Three hundred fifty people braved a day-long downpour to attend the opening reception of the four-day meeting, in the Commercial Club. Abigail delivered “the chief address of the evening” as its first honorary president, an accolade she had received in 1911. ((Oregon Federation of Women’s Clubs Yearbooks, 1912-13 and 1913-14, Mss 1511, Box 10, OR Hist. Soc.; Scrapbook #2, Abigail Scott Duniway Papers; Morning Oregonian 7 Oct. 1913.

The typescript from which this speech is taken is undated. All evidence, external and internal, points to this dating, with one puzzling exception (the Oregonian’s story on October 7 is dated September 6, but the month is clearly erroneous, not confounding): Scott Duniway refers to the “late” Heppie L. Ford Spalding. Path Breaking, published in 1914, does the same (213, 215-16). However, Ford Spalding did not die until March 26, 1915, following “an illness of several years” (infra, n. 16). Less-than-convincing explanations might be that, as an aging “rheumatic cripple” with limited access to “mortuary statistics,” as she confides here, Scott Duniway was misinformed; or that she was confusing Ford Spalding’s death with the latter’s husband’s, in 1905; or that, when her friend removed to the sanitarium, Scott Duniway thought she had died. In any event, Abigail is wildly wrong.))

Much of this address is also epideictic (in fact, a eulogy) in praise of the (deceased) founders of the region’s Women’s Clubs, which reflects on life after death. Even though her concluding prediction of her own death within a year proved to be overly pessimistic ((She would live for almost exactly two more years; on the circumstances of her death, see Moynihan, Rebel 218.)), Abigail’s age (two weeks shy of 79) and increasing infirmity render her speculations about the afterlife more personal and poignant.

Accounts of this occasion and speech were reported in the newspapers. Interestingly, while some commented simply that Abigail had spoken in her characteristic way, the Morning Oregonian drew its readers’ attention to paragraph eleven with a sub-line that shouted “ANNA SHAW IS DENOUNCED.”

The text is taken from an edited typescript in Scrapbook #2 of the Abigail Scott Duniway Papers. The sparer Oregonian version is seriously deficient because much eulogistic coloring has been removed. Material omitted by the newspaper appears in “<>” and other nontrivial discrepancies are explained in notes. Substantially the same material (albeit differently organized) also appears in Path Breaking. ((212-17.))

<In responding to the masterly greeting which honors us on this important occasion, what I say must be largely in the nature of a mortuary symposium.> It is most appropriate that this meeting of our State Federation should convene in this world-renowned young city of Hood River, the home of our late beloved co-worker, Mrs. E. L. Smith ((Georgia (Georgiana) Slocum Smith (?-1911): pioneer woman’s club leader in Oregon; founder, Hood River Woman’s Club; of Woodstock, Illinois; her father a staunch Democrat; attended Lombard University, Galesburg; married Ezra Leonard Smith, of Tazewell County, ardent Republican and also Lombard student, following Lincoln’s first inauguration, March 4, 1861; went to California immediately, then to Washington Territory, 1867, then to Hood River, March 1, 1876; well known for charity work with Native Americans of mid-Columbia Valley; instrumental in establishing Hood River county library; Unitarian; five daughters, one son (History of the Pacific Northwest 565-66; Sunday Oregonian 23 Jan. 1921, 30 Jan. 1921; Fred Lockley, “In Earlier Days,” Oregon Daily Journal 27 Aug. 1913; Sunset, the Pacific Monthly 29 (Oct. 1912): 439-41).)) <, of whom it can truly be said:

“None knew her but to love her,
None named her but to praise.” ((Adapted from “On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake,” by Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867).))

It was my good fortune to begin the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. E. L. Smith, and their charming daughters in Olympia, in the Autumn of 1871, when I visited the Washington Territorial Legislature in the company of our distinguished leader of all progressive woman’s movements, the late Susan B. Anthony ((Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906): born South Adams, Massachusetts; abolitionist; leader in woman’s rights reform; teacher, c. 1835-50; joined Daughters of Temperance, 1847; organized New York State Temperance Association, 1852; publisher, Revolution, 1868-70; co-founded National Woman Suffrage Association, 1869; vice president at large, 1869-92; president, National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1892-1900; arrested and tried for voting in 1872 Presidential election, refusing to pay $100 fine; initiated History of Woman Suffrage; helped found International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1904 (Lutz, “Anthony”; Barry; Willard and Livermore 1: 30-31).)) >. Mrs. Smith identified herself at that time with the Equal Suffrage movement ((OR inserts “in Olympia in 1871″)) as a co-worker with Mrs. Abby H. H. Stuart ((Abigail Howard Hunt Stuart (1839-1902): Washington suffragist inspired by Anthony’s and Scott Duniway’s 1871 visit to territorial legislature; chair, Washington Territory Board of Immigration, c. 1875-80; prominent clubwoman; founder, on March 10, 1883, and first president of Woman’s Club of Olympia (first woman’s club in Washington and second on Pacific Coast); chair, Constitution Committee, Washington State Federation of Woman’s Clubs organizing convention, September, 1896; treasurer, State Federation, 1898; wife of Robert G. Stuart; spoke at organizing meeting of Portland Woman’s Club, December 19, 1895, becoming member, 1899; died at 62 in San Francisco, January 6 (M. Andrews 7; Beard 63; Croly 1132-34, 1144-46, 1149; Haarsager 59, 135, 191; “Third [sic: Fourth] Annual Announcement of the Woman’s Club of Portland, Oregon, 1899-1900” 16, Mss 1084, OR Hist. Soc.; Library Association of Portland Newspaper Index microfiche, OR Hist. Soc.; Writer’s Project).)) and myself, beginning an intimacy that never ceased, though I, as the eldest of the trio, am today the only earthly survivor.

Of Mrs. Stuart, mother of Woman’s Clubs in the Pacific Northwest, whose all too early decease cut short her hope of seeing the full enfranchisement of women in Oregon and Washington <(though she did live to see it in Idaho)>, I am proud to say that the Woman’s Club movement we now celebrate was her inspiration<, that it began with her and was successfully guided by her until called to the skies>.

I met with Mrs. Stuart at the home of Mrs. Clara E. Sylvester ((Clara E. Pottle Sylvester (1823-?): born Deer Isle, Maine; came to Olympia in 1854 as wife of Edmund Sylvester (1821-1887), Eastport, Maine, native who came to Oregon, 1843, living in Astoria and Portland before moving to Chambers Prairie, Washington, 1846; upon death of partner Levi Lathrop Smith, 1848, Sylvester acquired claim on waterfront at Budd Inlet; following failed trip to California goldfields, 1849, he platted claim, founding city of Olympia; following his death, she moved to San Diego, California (“Our People”; “Our People, continued“; “Clara E. Sylvester (Pottle)“). The Sylvesters erected the showplace of early Olympia, an Italianate home that was the largest in the city, along Capitol Way between Seventh and Eighth Streets, facing the water. Clara hosted the first meeting of the Woman’s Club there in 1883 and housed many visiting suffragists during the fight of Washington women for the right to vote (“Historic Preservation Assessment and Action Plan” Sec. III: 25). Because her father had been among the early settlers on Puget Sound in 1854, before returning to Oregon in the wake of hostilities with the natives, Abigail was welcomed by pioneer friends during her travels and was “frequently entertained” by the Sylvesters and others (Moynihan, “Let Women Vote” 101).)) in Olympia <at the close of an exciting political upheaval over Territorial local option, with which neither of these ladies were in accord. Mrs. Stuart argued that as the combined forces of all business men were allied more or less directly with the liquor traffic, a prejudice had been created against Woman Suffrage through women’s part in the struggle which could no longer be combated openly. She suggested a new movement, beginning in Olympia, to be called a Woman’s Club, where everything else of public interest could be discussed except “religion, politics ((Abigail crossed out “prohibition” and substituted “politics” here.)) and temperance.”> Mrs. Sylvester, if I remember rightly, did not at once embrace the plan ((OR inserts “for a women’s club as outlined by Mrs. Stuart.”)) <, and I do not know that she ever affiliated with the Olympia Woman’s Club. But I saw at once, the logic of Mrs. Stuart’s reasoning and agreed with it implicitly. But I said that I was publishing The New Northwest, and openly advocating Equal Rights for women, and having burned my bridges behind me, had cut off retreat. “So much the better for us all,” said Mrs. Stuart, “Keep to your own firing line, and when the time is ripe for starting the Club movement in Oregon I will come over and help.”> For prudential reasons I, as a suffrage leader ((OR substitutes “leading suffragist”)), stayed away from the preliminary meeting with Mrs. Stuart, in Portland, held at the home of the late Mrs. W. W. Spalding (( Hephzibah (Heppie) Locke Ford Spaulding (or Spalding) (1840?-1915): daughter of Simeon Ford of Boston; married William Wallace Spaulding (1839-1905), who made his fortune in stock raising and meat packing, 1861; came to Portland, fall, 1862; member, First Unitarian Church; active in charity, especially Children’s Home in south Portland; charter member, Portland Woman’s Club; died March 26, at 75, in sanitarium after “an illness of several years” (Spalding 769; Scott, History of Portland 628-29; Writer’s Project; Morning Oregonian 27 Mar. 1915; Hines 525-26).)); but I risked attending the first open meeting, <held> at the Hotel Portland ((On January 14, 1896 (First Annual Report).)), where I had the honor to demand the permanent formation of the Woman’s Club movement on the basis originated by Mrs. Stuart, and was the first woman in Oregon to suggest the creation of the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs ((OR adds “, which I did at that meeting”)). <That I often disobeyed Mrs. Stuart’s suggestions by throwing telling shots for Equal Suffrage into the Club meetings, and was as often getting publicly reprimanded therefor, all older club members of Portland know. I lost track of Mrs. E. L. Smith for a time, and when I next heard of her and her charming family, they had become established in this wonderful Hood River Valley, and were primal movers in placing the world’s most marvelous apple industry on the maps of Oregon and the rest of the planet. What better can be said of our beloved risen friend than:

“She builded better than she knew.” ((Adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s (1803-1882) “The Problem.”)) >

The ((OR begins this sentence “After the death of Mrs. Smith the”)) next great loss to the Woman’s Club movement <for the current year> was< met in the untimely decease of> Mrs. Myrtle Pease Hatfield, of the Forest Grove Woman’s Club<, a bride of a few months, who at once became noted as a leader of public and social activities in the classic town of her adoption, where she was suddenly stricken to death by a mysterious tragedy which threw Forest Grove into consternation and the progressive women of the entire State into grief. ((Myrtle Evalyne Pease Hatfield (1873-1913): born Newton, Iowa; daughter of Clinton W. (1839-1913) and Margaret A. Pease; came to Oregon with parents, 1899; taught school in Albany for five years, c. 1904, then two years in rural sections, then three years in Mt. Tabor; resigned to take position with Boy’s and Girl’s Aid Society, traveling throughout state “looking after neglected children, often undergoing great hardship and privation”; corresponding secretary, O.S.E.S.A., 1906-11; married Charles Hatfield, retired Forest Grove merchant, October 4, 1911. She died on Friday, March 14, 1913, after suffering for three or four days from a severe cold, and complaining of pain in her back and sides. However, she appeared to have rebounded shortly before her breathing stopped. Despite the suddenness of her death under “peculiar circumstances,” a coroner’s inquest found nothing abnormal and attributed her death to “apnoae,” contributing causes unknown (Forest Grove Press 20 Mar. 1913; Washington County News Times 20 Mar. 1913; A. Duniway, Path Breaking 215; cf. Springsteen, who says she was born in Nebraska in 1874).)) Mrs. Hatfield had been corresponding secretary of the State Equal Suffrage Association for the six years preceding her marriage; and as traveling agent for the Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society, she has visited almost every part of the State in which in her quiet, tactful and intelligent way, she had sown the seeds of Votes for Women everywhere.

The tax-payers Suffrage Amendment, which had been launched as an experiment in 1910, under the advice of experienced political leaders, had proved, as predicted, the best political education for women ever attempted since the disastrous result of the election of 1906, which under the domination of the National Woman Suffrage invasion, had left us swamped in the quicksands of what seemed a hopeless defeat.

The smoke of the battle of 1910 had hardly cleared away before Miss Pease met me at my home, where she and I together prepared the full text of the clause in the State Constitution, to enfranchise women, which is now a part of the fundamental law. Our action was ratified by our Executive Committee at its next regular meeting, and as our treasury was practically empty, I borrowed $500.00 at bank, on my personal note, which our committee used to meet the expenses of the initiative petition to launch the next campaign.

To you, my beloved sisters of the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs,> allow me to say, in justice to our risen ((OR substitutes “late”)) friend <and co-worker, whose lips are sealed in mortal death>, that next to the name of Abby H. H. Stuart will stand in history the name and deeds of Myrtle Pease Hatfield, to whose quiet, tactful work among the voters throughout the State, we are more deeply indebted today for <our> enfranchisement than to any other agency in all our ranks. ((Interestingly, Abigail’s account in Path Breaking ranks Pease Hatfield second in importance, not to Stuart, but to “my unaspiring self” (215)!))

<“She rests from her labors, but her works do follow her.”>

I regret that I cannot at this moment give you the date of Mrs. W. W. Spalding’s transition. <I am, as you see, a rheumatic cripple and cannot serve the Federation with such mortuary statistics as are not just at my hand. Suffice it to say of Mrs. Spalding that though gone from our sight she> ((For the material in <>, OR substitutes “The memory of Mrs. Spalding”)) is living within the hearts of those who loved her in life, and in her passing <away> she is not forgotten.

The next shining light to pass from our Portland Club center since the last meeting of the Federation, was Mrs. Julia H. Bauer ((Julia Heyman Bauer (1843?-1913): linguist and teacher, speaking seven languages fluently; born Buchsweiler (Alsace-Lorraine), France; educated Paris; resided Portland; married Jacques Bauer, merchant, April 14, 1864; moved to Walla Walla, establishing home on Alder near Fifth, which became “center of belles lettres” for that part of Washington; began teaching languages and needle work to officers at Fort Walla Walla, their families, and other residents; professor, modern languages, Whitman College, 1882; returned to Portland upon husband’s death, 1890; leader, department of English literature, Portland Woman’s Club, studying Shakespeare; authored dictionary in Volapuk (universal language invented by Johann Schleyer, 1877) which appeared at Chicago Exposition, 1893, and for which she received Doctor’s degree; four daughters–Emilie Frances, celebrated writer, composer, Minnie, Flora, Marion, also writer, musician; one son, Cecil, whom she tutored until he was 13 and who entered law school at Eugene, 1888; died July 16, at 70, following year’s illness; Bauer became Scott Duniway’s long-time neighbor, residing at 290 Clay St.  (Morning Oregonian 17 July 1913; Sunday Oregonian 20 July 1913; Bowden 105-06; First Annual Report 4; “The First Annual Announcement of the Woman’s Club, 1896-7” 11, Mss 1084, OR Hist. Soc.; History of the Bench 86).)), an original leader in the Equal Suffrage movement, <whom I first met in Walla Walla, as early as 1872. Mrs. Bauer afterwards moved to Portland, and became an active club woman. She was> a notable thinker and Shakespearean scholar<, and was an early teacher of Volapuk, a mixture, for commercial use, of many languages, which she afterwards discarded for Esperanto, a later invention, which she readily acquired and taught with success>.

It now becomes my solemn duty to record the name and eulogize the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Lord ((Elizabeth Laughlin Lord (1841-1913): “with the possible exception of” Scott Duniway herself, “the best known of the pioneer women of Oregon”; born Missouri; daughter of William Catesby and Mary Jane Yeargain Laughlin, 1850 pioneers in The Dalles; on New Year’s Day, 1861, married Wintworth Lord (1832-1917), merchant, cattle- and sheep-man, and miller, who came to The Dalles from California, 1858; one of first proponents of suffrage in Oregon; vice-president, O.S.E.S.A., at death and “one of Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway’s most valuable aides”; president, Women’s Political Study club, a local suffrage society; First Reader, Christian Science Church of The Dalles; member, Sorosis; “a lady of marked literary taste and ability, and the author of a number of interesting articles and books,” including Reminiscences of Eastern Oregon, her diary of family’s overland journey and early years, 1903; “a woman of charming personality and of exceptionally brilliant mind even until the day of her death”; among fifty most outstanding people in history of Wasco County; died in August of heart trouble; two children, one who survived (McNeal 52, 65; Illustrated History of Central Oregon 278; Sunday Oregonian 4 Mar. 1917; Sarah Evans, “Women’s Clubs, Women’s Work,” Oregon Sunday Journal 20 Nov. 1904; Scrapbook #44: 87, #50: 86, OR Hist. Soc.; “Mrs. Lord is Called Suddenly,” Vertical File, “Biography-‘Lo’”, OR Hist. Soc.). In Path Breaking, Abigail describes her as “a pioneer of the early ‘40s” (216).)), Vice-President of the State Equal Suffrage Association, a late <lamented> member and leader of The Dalles Woman’s Club<, who recently left this visible stage of action and is now abiding in the land of souls>. In my ((OR: “the”)) arduous work for woman’s enfranchisement which followed the <terrible> defeat into which we were thrown by the Anna Shaw ((Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919): Methodist minister, physician, temperance and woman’s rights lecturer; degrees in theology, 1878, and medicine, 1885, Boston University; Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, 1885; superintendent, national W.C.T.U. franchise department, 1888-92; vice-president, 1892-1904, and president, 1904-15, N.A.W.S.A.; first woman to receive Distinguished Service Medal, for her international efforts for world peace; published autobiography, The Story of a Pioneer, 1915; memorialized in National Women’s Hall of Fame, 2000 (Flexner, “Shaw”; Linkugel).)) regime of 1905-6, Mrs. Lord and her <good> husband ((Wintworth Lord (1832-1917): merchant, cattle- and sheep-man, miller; came to The Dalles from California, 1858.)) helped to finance the empty treasury of the Equal Suffrage Association, and revive the sinking spirits of our discouraged co-workers. When Anna Shaw, as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association, <to which our state E.S.A. had paid tribute for 40 years (including $1,000 raised for it by myself in 1871),> confiscated our fund, and paid it over to a little campaign committee of a local Woman’s  Club of Portland, I lay for many months on a bed of almost fatal suffering, upon which her malfeasance ((OR: “I lay for many months between life and death on a bed where her malfeasance”)) in office and its attendant disappointments had thrown me. I was not physically able to make a protest at the time, neither did I dare to do it, for the November election of 1912 was pending, and I could not permit the anti-suffragists to whip us by exposing sedition in our own ranks. Then, as ((OR adds “the”)) time went on <and> I saw that Peter was being robbed to pay Paul, and my health had improved a little, I appealed personally to Mrs. Lord of The Dalles, Mrs. Hutton ((Mary (May) Arkwright Hutton (1860-1915): illegitimate child, born in Ohio coal country; raised by father and blind grandfather; awakened to woman’s rights by discussion between father and overnight guest, young lawyer William McKinley; at 18, married Frank Day; at 22, married coal miner Gilbert Munn; came to Coeur d’Alene district of Idaho as mining camp and boardinghouse cook, 1883; married third husband, Levi W. “Al” Hutton, railroad engineer, November 17, 1887; fierce defender of organized labor during disastrous “Rocky Mountain Revolution” in mines, 1892-99; wrote, published and promoted “the true story” of labor troubles, The Coeur d’Alenes: A Tale of the Modern Inquisition in Idaho, 1900; met and campaigned in Idaho with Scott Duniway, 1895; Hercules silver and lead mine, in which she bought 1/34 interest in 1897 and which began producing in 1901, made her fabulously wealthy within ten years; Democratic nominee for state legislature, 1904; joined N.A.W.S.A. and attended first national convention, in Portland, 1905; moved to Spokane, 1906, joining Susan B. Anthony and Scott Duniway in campaigning for suffrage in Washington, first working and then clashing with Emma Smith DeVoe over tactics, eventually splitting Washington Equal Suffrage Association during N.A.W.S.A. convention in Seattle, 1909; ardent Democrat and William Jennings Bryan supporter; first woman delegate to Democratic National Convention, 1912; noted philanthropist, especially Florence Crittenton home for unwed mothers, Spokane Charities Commission, and Hutton Settlement for orphaned and unwanted children; large, uncouth woman “with a questionable past and a flamboyant nature who was anathema to many other suffragists,” nonetheless Scott Duniway’s “close friend and disciple”; Scott Duniway rode in Thomas Flyer that Arkwright Hutton decorated and entered in Portland Rose Festival, 1897, and Arkwright Hutton was invited guest on platform for Scott Duniway’s seventy-eighth birthday celebration, 1912 (Montgomery 48-49, 104-05; Roberta Cheney, “From Rags to Riches,” in Western Writers of America 220-39; Moynihan, Rebel 194-95; P. Horner; Mulford 72-79).)) of Spokane and Mrs. Jonathan Bourne ((Lillian Elizabeth Wyatt Bourne: of Linn County; on November 28, 1893, in Chicago, married Jonathan Bourne, Jr., progressive Republican, friend of La Follette, U.S. Senate, 1907-13; left him in February, 1913, returning to Portland from Washington, D.C., and filed for divorce in April, charging verbal and physical abuse (Morning Oregonian 8 Apr. 1913; Pomeroy).)), of Oregon, for help to meet my debt at bank ((OR: “my debt due at the bank for making the campaign”)), each of whom sent $100. <Mr.> W. M. Davis ((Probably William Melvin “Pike” Davis (1866-1939): attorney; born Edgar County, Illinois; son of William L. and Hartly Irene Minor Davis; family moved to Missouri when he was 3, settling in Pike County; graduated Louisiana, Missouri, high school, 1886; studied law while working as watchman in planing mill; admitted to Missouri bar, 1887 or 1888; city attorney, Louisiana, Missouri; came to Oregon and admitted to bar, August, 1891; deputy city attorney, Portland, 1896-1902; founder, Multnomah Bar Association; president, Oregon Bar Association, 1933; active in Republican politics; died in February, at 73, after three-month illness (History of the Bench 120; Oregonian 2 Mar. 1939; Oregon Daily Journal 28 Feb. 1939).)), President of the Men’s Equal Suffrage League, also contributed liberally and our State membership dues paid the balance, with accruing interest.

Meanwhile, our Executive Committee, not knowing these bequests were coming, held a meeting for the same purpose, with Dr. Viola M. Coe ((Viola May Boley Coe: M.D.; born Bourbon, Indiana; married Henry Waldo Coe (1857-1927), also prominent physician of mental and nervous diseases, in North Dakota, 1882; graduate, Woman’s Medical College of Chicago, 1890; began practice in Portland, 1891; founded Mindsease Hospital, Portland, 1897, Mt. Tabor Sanitarium, 1900, Coe Hospital and maternity home, Portland, 1910; helped organize Home for Unemployed Women Without Means; president (or acting), O.S.W.S.A., 1905-12; delegate, International Woman’s Convention, Budapest, 1913; divorced, 1914 (Moynihan, Rebel 214; Who’s Who in Oregon 58; cf. Hines 608).)), acting president, in the Chair, where a fund was raised which came in most appropriately toward meeting other expenses of the State Campaign. ((OR renders this sentence: “Meanwhile, not knowing these bequests were coming, a meeting was arranged, with Dr. Viola May Coe presiding, at which a fund was raised for the same purpose by the state executive committee, which came in most appropriately as an aid in meeting other expenses of the state campaign.”))

I am stating these facts in response to the personal request of <our risen club member and coadjutor,> Mrs. Lord, who asked it of me at our last personal interview, when I was confined to my bed, and it did not seem possible that I should survive her, though she believed her own demise ((OR: “death”)) was imminent <on account of heart trouble. Mrs. Lord was a woman of many attainments and many virtues. Her literary accomplishments were of a high order. Many of her historical writings will live long after the works of most of us are forgotten. Her beautiful residence was a rendezvous for men and women of literary attainment, who enjoyed the unbounded hospitality of her artistic home. She was a chief factor in building and sustaining the first Christian Science Church at The Dalles, and a promoter and assistant in all things pertaining to the up-building of her town.>

Our next and last important and useful member of the Federation whose translation ((Probably “transition” is intended.)) it is my melancholy duty to report for the year, ((For “whose . . .year,” OR substitutes “to pass”)) was Mrs. Martha A. Dalton ((Martha Angeline Cardwell Barnhart Dalton (1839-1913): daughter of William Lee and Mary Ann Biddle Cardwell, who crossed plains from Jacksonville, Illinois, 1852, settling in Marysville (Corvallis), then moving to Portland, 1858; married December 28, 1854, to James B. Barnhart at Corvallis; married Frank Dalton of Lewiston, Idaho Territory, July 24, 1866; music teacher; charter member, Portland Woman’s Club; frequent member of library and chautauqua committees of Oregon Federation of Woman’s Clubs; sister of Dr. James Robert Cardwell, Portland’s first dentist; died in September (Weekly Oregonian 13 Jan. 1855; Daily Oregonian 26 July 1866; Moynihan, Rebel 84; Writer’s Project; Scrapbooks #21: 13, #44: 105, 155, OR Hist. Soc.; Oregon Federation of Woman’s Clubs Yearbooks, Mss 1511, Box 10, OR Hist. Soc.; Gaston, Portland 387-92). Scott Duniway comments: “She remained a member of the Executive Committee of the State Equal Suffrage Association up to the time of her death; and, though a prohibitionist, always agreed with my efforts to hold the Suffrage Movement aloof from affiliation with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, after it got into politics” (Path Breaking 217).)), a charter member of the Portland Woman’s Club, and for seven or eight consecutive years the chairman of the Federation Headquarters at the annual meetings of the Willamette Valley Chautauqua Association. Mrs. Dalton, in collaboration with ((OR inserts “the late”)) Mrs. M. J. Foster ((Martha Jane Gray Foster (?-1881); daughter of James Gray, who emigrated to Oregon, 1850, merchant, wheat and flour miller who helped build Oregon Cascade Wagon Road and Oregon and California Railroad; she crossed plains, 1852, residing at Union Point, Linn County; first wife of James Hearst Foster; married 1853; located on donation land claim near Albany after marriage; five children (Vertical File, “Genealogy–Foster, James Hearst Family”, OR Hist. Soc.).)) <, long since deceased,> and myself, met at my home in Albany in 1871, <shortly before my removal to Portland to establish The New Northwest,” and formed the nucleus of the State Equal Suffrage Association, of which Mrs. Dalton was an official member up to the time of her passing away. ((For “passing away,” OR substitutes “death.” This meeting actually occurred in November, 1870 (“San Francisco County Woman Suffrage Association“).))

<These reminiscences naturally lead us to ask each other “what about the future life”? Happily I know that every one of the departed Club women I have named was a firm believer in eternal existence. They were all aware, as I am, that:

“Heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread
At the misty future that stretches on
From the silent home of the dead.

‘Tis no lone isle in a boundless main,
No brilliant but distant shore,
Where the loved ones who are called away
Must go to return no more.

No! heaven is near us; the misty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we see not the glorious angel bands
On the shores of eternity.

I know when the silver cord is loosed;
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be,
To the realms of endless day.” ((This unattributed poem, entitled “Heaven,” was collected in The Changed Cross, and Other Religious Poems, compiled from newspapers and magazines by Anson Davies Fitz Randolph, in 1865 (50). Scott Duniway shortens the original, which is as follows:

Oh! Heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with a trembling dread
At the misty future that stretches on,
From the silent home of the dead.

‘Tis no lone isle on a boundless main,
No brilliant but distant shore,
Where the lovely ones who are called away
Must go to return no more.

No, heaven is near us; the mighty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we cannot see the angel bands,
On the shores of eternity.

The eye that shuts in a dying hour
Will open the next in bliss;
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world,
Ere the farewell is hushed in this.

We pass from the clasp of mourning friends,
To the arms of the loved and lost,
And those smiling faces will greet us there,
Which on earth we have valued most.

Yet oft in the hours of holy thought,
To the thirsting soul is given
That power to pierce through the mist of sense,
To the beauteous scenes of heaven.

Then very near seem its pearly gates,
And sweetly its harpings fall;
Till the soul is restless to soar away,
And longs for the angel’s call.

I know when the silver cord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be,
To the realms of endless day.

Abigail’s abridged version had appeared previously in her 1905 novel, From the West to the West (129-30), and in her address before the Oregon Pioneer Association the preceding June.)) >

I do not expect, or hope, to be with you in the body at another annual meeting, but I intend always to meet with you in spirit and in love. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to announce the fact that the Woman’s Club movement has at last accomplished the primal object<–the enfranchisement of women–>for which it was created in the Pacific Northwest by Mrs. H. H. ((OR: “A. H. H.”)) Stuart, the mother of clubs.

<When Mrs. Sarah A. Evans ((Sarah Ann Shannon Evans (1854-1940): born Bedford, Pennsylvania; attended Lutherville College (Maryland Woman’s College); married William M. Evans, 1873; three daughters; lived in North Dakota, where collected Indian relics; moved to Oregon, 1894, settling in Oswego; co-founder, Portland Woman’s Club, 1895; president, 1903-04; co-founder, Oregon State Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1899; president, 1905-15; chaired committee on free public libraries, 1899, and lobbied legislature for tax bill enabling same in Portland; organized financing of Sacagawea statue for Lewis and Clark Exposition, 1905; proponent of trade schools and domestic science education (founded cooking school in South Portland that led to public school curriculum), humane care for mentally ill (campaigned for certified nurses to accompany insane when transported to state hospital in Salem), child labor reform, and pure food laws; appointed Portland city market inspector, first in U.S., and policewoman, August 17, 1905 (position held until 1935); appointed state Liberty Loan coordinator by President Woodrow Wilson; an active Democrat, sought to ally Portland Woman’s Club with Clara Dorothy Bewick Colby and Anna Howard Shaw, and to undercut Scott Duniway’s suffrage leadership, after 1906 debacle (Corning 81; Downs 220-23; Gaston, Portland 2: 718-19; Oregon Lung Association; First Annual Report; Oregonian 11 Dec. 1940; Writer’s Project; Agnes Holt, “Sarah A. Evans (1854-1940),” in H. Smith, With Her Own 229-30; Moynihan, Rebel 213, 215).)), the faithful and able presiding officer of this Federation took the chair eight years ago, we had less than a dozen affiliated clubs to call upon for assistance. Today we have sixty Clubs in the Federation, all working in harmony, along the lines of social, domestic, educational, philanthropic and civic improvements, giving tangible proof of her executive ability and your loyalty. Her formative work is finished. Whether she may or may not be chosen to again succeed herself, her arduous labors as a pioneer are completed.

As voters, we are now in a position to accomplish many reforms for which, prior to November 5, 1912, we could only plead. New duties and responsibilities are upon us. Let us not forget to help the Club women of other states who are yet to attain the power to which we have risen; and above all, let us not forget the day of reckoning awaiting every one of us in the land of souls, toward which we are all hastening, as we

“Nightly pitch our moving tents,
A day’s march nearer home.” ((Adapted from “At Home in Heaven,” by James Montgomery (1771-1884).)) >

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