# Representative women of New England/Olive E. Dana

​OLIVE E. DANA has won an enviable reputation as story-teller, essayist, and poet. Her first published article appeared in 1877. "Under Friendly Eaves" is a volume of short stories, revealing the natural and wholesome atmosphere and at the same time the romantic and heroic spirit which pervade the true New England life. This book, as one reviewer has fitly said, "brings the reader into pleasant places and among honest 'kintra' folk of the sterling kind such as may be found in the rural districts with which Mrs. Stowe first began to make us familiar." Through Miss Dana's character sketches the reader is introduced to genuine country and village people; and, if the crabbed, miserly old man and the melancholy and morbid woman occasionally appear, they are portrayed as exceptions, not as types. The influence of her stories, imbued as they are with the spirit of cheery helpfulness, is enmobling and uplifting. Many of her stories are for children and young people. In addition to her rare gifts as a story-teller. Miss Dana possesses the poet's instinct and power of interpretation. Her published verses, among them being such poems as "The Summons," "Explanation," "For Light," "Shakespeare's Day," and "It Always Comes," which disclose a deep spiritual insight into nature and humanity, have been widely copied. Miss Dana has also contributed to the Journal of Education, and other similar publications, articles which, with her critical and literary essays and her able and discriminating V)ook reviews, disclose a scholarly and cultured mind, originality of thought, and the keen instinct of the critic.
In her literary work, as well as in her personal character, Miss Dana shows her rich New England heritage. There have been numerous instances in the history of our country which prove that literary ability is the product. not alone of individual talent, but also of family inheritance; and, in view of this unquestioned fact. Miss Dana comes rightfully by her mental strength and versatility of talent. She is a direct descendant of Richard Dana, whose name appears upon the records of Cambridge, Mass., in 1640, and who was the founder of a family which has contributed in a marked degree to the social, literary, and political advancement of our country. Patriots, soldiers, preachers, edi- tors, authors, scientists, college presidents and professors, are all found in the annals of the family bearing the old and honored name of Dana.
The immigrant Dana was of English birth; but it is believed that there was a strain of French blood in his family, and this may have given to the Danas something of the vivacity and brilliancy which is noted in the work of many authors who have French as well as English blood in their veins. It is certain that, with all those stanch and heroic qualities which have made the Danas eminent for generations, the members of this family have also inherited an intellectual brilliancy which has made them a recognized power in our civic and literary history. It is therefore but a
​natural and happy result that the subject of this sketch should have entered upon her life work endowed with those mental qualifications by the cultivation of which she has developed into a versatile and charming writer. But she is not indebted to the Danas alone for her inheritance.
Her great-grandfather, Phineas Dana, a descendant of Joseph Dana, the second son of the original Richard, settled in Oxford, Mass. He married Mehitabel AVolcott, of that town, daughter of Josiah$^5$ Wolcott (Henry,$^1$ of Windsor, Conn.) and his wife Isabella, daughter of the Rev. John Campbell. This eminent divine, who for forty years was beloved and revered as pastor of the church at Oxford, Mass., where many traditions of his scholarship and godly character still remain, was a native of Scotland and a graduate of Edinburgh University. An early ancestor of Miss Dana's on the maternal side was Major Thomas Savage, who came from England to Boston in 1633, and who was the founder of a family distinguished by integrity, industry, great determination, and unusual physical endurance. Of this typical New England stock was James Savage, one of the earliest and most prominent settlers of Augusta, Me. His wife, Eliza Bickford, of Alton, N.H., is still remembered as a woman of devout thought and benignant presence. Sarah W. Savage, the daughter of James and Eliza Bickford Savage, married James Wolcott Dana, and became the mother of Olive E. Dana, who was born in Augusta, December 24, 1859.
With her refined and charming personality, her forceful and sympathetic character, and her remarkable mental endowments, Miss Dana has exerted a wide influence in her large circle of friends and among the many readers whom she has never .seen. During the last twenty years, while constantly contributing to the press, Miss Dana has generously given of her time and ability to all good works. She has been interested and active in the church and in the philanthropic and educational movements of the day. She was one of the founders of the Current Events Club of Augusta, and was for two years its honored and efficient president. She has also been a member of Unity Club; and one of her most beautiful poems, "The Laggard Land," was written for a Ixinquet of this old and well-known literary society.