Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1898 — MISS WILLARD DEAD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MISS WILLARD DEAD.

THE NOTED TEMPERANCE WORKER PASSES AWAY. . The Great W. C. T. U. Leader, After a Valiant Struggle for Life, Dies at the Imperial Hotel, New York—Her Life and Works. A Noble Life Knded. Miss Frances E. Willard died at midnight Thursday at the Imperial Hotel in New York City. A fatal termination of

her illness had been expected for several hours. Miss W’illard had been ill for about three weeks. Dr. Hill made the following statement Thursday night: “Miss W’illard had suffered some years with profound ane--1 mia, and on several occasions had been given up to die. Last summer she seemed 'to take on a new lease of life and gained in weight

and strength so that she went through her convention work at Toronto and Buffalo, which was most arduous, and came out much better than was expected, but on her arrival, five weeks ago, she was much prostrated and readily took the grip, which attacked the stomach, liver, intestines and later the nervous syrtem. The disease progressed favorably, and in many respects she had greatly improved when the fatal issue came and overwhelmed the nerve centers. There was no cancerous degeneration of any organ, as bus been stated.” Miss Willard’s Career. Frances Elizabeth Willard was born Sept. 28, 1539, in Churchville, near Rochester, N. Y. Her parents were New Englanders. While she was yet a babe her parents moved to Oberlin, 0., from which place, after a residence of five years, they moved to a farm near Janesville, W r is. Miss Willard lived on the farm for thirteen years. Up to her fifteenth year she had never seen the inside of a school room save for an hour or two at a time, and then only as she visited the classes of her girlhood friends. Her first schooling of which any mention is made was at the Woman’s seminary, founded by Catherine Beecher at Milwaukee, Wis. She spent there only one term. Afterward she entered the Northwestern Female College at Evanston, 111. She took the full course prescribed at that institution and graduated in 1859 with high honors. In 18G8 Miss Willard made a tour abroad. She went to Paris and studied in the College de France. Among the. celebrated men from whom she received instruction was Guizot. She studied also in Berlin and Rome and then visited Greece, Egypt and Palestine.. Her Temperance Work. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union had been organized, but its efforts had amounted to little so far as practical results were concerned. Miss W’illard was elected corresponding secretary of the organization. She put iuto her new work all the vigor of her strong constitution. She broadened the scope of the organization, wrote letters to women all over the country, nnd within a short time made the movement one of national imHer efforts met with such success and were so heartily commended by the members of the organization and by the public generally that she was made vice-president of the society, and in 1879 was elected to the office of national president. Her work for temperance took her throughout every part of the United States and through many European countries. She visited every city in the United States of 10,000 inhabitants, most of those of 5,000 and hundreds of smaller population. She was an indefatigable lecturer, and lectured wherever she stopped long enough for such a purpose, her aid in the cause of temperance being everywhere recognized as of the utmost importance and widely sought.

MISS FRANCES WILLARD