# Representative women of New England/Josephine Roache

​Josephine Roache was born in the pretty village of Beaver River, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, in the country of Evangeline, June 25, 1845. Her father, Israel Roache, was born in Granville, N.S., being a son of Frederick and Elizabeth (Ricketson) Roache.
His father, Frederick Roache, a native and lifelong resident of Granville, died at the age of ninety on the farm that had been his home for many years. He was a man of independent opinions, taking an active interest in public affairs and in promoting the welfare of the village. His ancestors came to America from Waterford, Ireland, in the early part of the eighteenth century.
Israel Roache's mother was a refined and delicate woman. Her ancestors went to Nova Scotia from Virginia before the breaking out of the Revolution, doubtless leaving some of their kinsfolk in that State, as the name Ricketson, it is said, is still known in the South.
The maiden name of Josephine Roache's mother was Almira Corning. Her earliest ancestor in America, Samuel Corning, who arrived in Salem, Mass., as early as 1638, was among the founders of Beverly, where there is now Corning Street, named for the family. Her father, Daniel Corning, was one of the first settlers of Beaver River, having left Beverly some years before the Revolution. Her mother, Mrs. Abigail Perry Corning, also belonged to a family that went from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia before the Revolution.
Mr. and Mrs. Israel Roache, wishing to educate their children in the United States, the public school system not then having been introduced into the British Provinces, came to Salem, Mass., when Josephine, the eldest child, was six years old. At the breaking out of the Civil War Mr. Roache enlisted in the Thirty-fifth (Massachusetts) Regiment. He was in the battles and campaigns shared by the Ninth Army Corps, at South Mountain, Antietam, and later in the battles of the Wilderness; and at the battle of Cold Harbor he was taken prisoner, and, after a short confinement at Libby Prison, was sent to Andersonville, where he died in 1864.
Josephine Roache received her education in Massachusetts schools. Her first teaching was in Danversport, whither the family had removed after a few years' sojourn in Salem. Later she taught in Salem, Danvers, and Lynn, being connected over twenty years with the Lynn schools. Since leaving public school work, she has conducted classes in literature and current events in Lynn, Salem, and Danvers, and has been a prominent member in the Lynn Women's Club and the Outlook Club. She has also lectured before many clubs in New England.
From early childhood her love for good literature has increased year by year. Her influence in guiding the literary taste of the high school pupils who came under her teaching was a strong one, the result being that, as college professors have given testimony, ​they were more advanced in literature than pupils from similar schools. She had the rare ability of telling pupils just enough to awaken in them the desire to read every author she touched upon. This ability, she often says, was inherited from her mother, who was an excellent raconteur, and who inspired her with a love for the best in the world of books. Miss Roache is a poet of no mean al)ility, having written verses for many public occasions, among them the hynm sung at the laying of the corner-stone of the Lynn High School, and the poem called " The Story of the Okl Elm Tree," written for the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town of Danvers.
Perhaps no better estimate of her character and work can be made than the following, written by a co-worker in the Lynn High School, who has been able to trace her influence in the lives of many that came under her instruction during a period of nearly forty years:—
"In the summer of 1881 I first became acquainted with Miss Josephine Roache. At that time she was an assistant in the Lynn High School; and for ten years thereafter, in one capacity or another, I was associated with her in- the work of that school, and learned to know and value her excellent qualities as teacher and woman.
"Her special department was English literature: and she certainly was possessed of remarkable power to interest the young people, perhaps more especially girls, in that subject. Her methods evidenced a conviction on her part that the way to teach English literature to pupils enough advanced to be in high school .should by no means be limited to a dissection and critical analysis of the sentences, or even of the entire composition. One saw at once that it was her higher aim to make the pupils' hearts and souls respond to the author's thought. Her low, soft, well-modulated voice bespoke the perfect self-control; and she .scorned to govern her classes by means inconsistent with a self-respecting and dignified womanly character. "At the time Miss Roache left the high school, the English department suffered a blow from which it has never wholly recovered.
"Outside of her school, in the every-day affairs of life, she was altogether prone to espouse the cause of the suffering and oppressed. She was an ardent advocate of Home Rule for Ireland, and never missed an opportunity by tongue or pen to advance it. I think majority opinions had little weight with her, except as they commended themselves to her heail and heart. She believed that Edward B(>llainy's theories are in the right direction, and she was an active member of the Nationalist Club of Lynn, formed in the eighties, associating in the work with such men and women as Dr. Benjamin Percival, Hannah M. Todd, CJeorge H. Carey, Dr. Esther H. Hawkes, and Herman Kemp.
"Miss Roache is scholarly, but to an extent that I have never seen surpassed she preserves the well-springs of human nature from drovight that culture so frequently induces. She is a scholar indeed; but she never forgets that her first duty is to humanity as a whole, and not to any particular clique or class."