# Representative women of New England/Angle A. Robinson

​ANGIE A. ROBINSON
​ANGIE ADELE ROBINSON, past President of the Department of Massachusetts. Woman's Relief Corps, is one of the representative women of Worcester, her native place, and is known throughout the State for her great interest in patriotic work.
She was born August 6, 1843, daughter of Timothy Eliot and Sarah Hadaway (Bartlett) Kidder. Her paternal grandfather was Timothy Kidder; her maternal grandfather, John Hadaway Bartlett. She was educated in private schools, of which there were many in Worcester at that time. At the age of ten years she began the study of music under the instruction of Miss Fances Kidder, an aunt. Later she was a pupil of Eugene Thayer, the eminent organist, of Boston. She continued these studies several years, but, owing to reverses in the family, was unable to carry out her plan and obtain a thorough musical education.
The marriage of Angie Adele Kidder and William Lyman Robinson, a native of Barre, Vt., and in boyhood and youth a resident of Concord, N.H., took place August 7, 1861. This ​was the opening year of the Civil War and, as she says, "a trying time to make a start in the world." Mrs. Robinson's brother, George Mortimer Kidder, enlisted in September, 1861, in Company C, Fourth New Hampshire Regiment, was taken prisoner at the battle of Deep Bottom (or Deep Cut, as it is sometimes called), and suffered in Libby, Belle Isle, and Salisbury Prisons for nearly ten months. He was paroled March 9, 1865, but lived only eleven days after reaching his home in Worcester. His death occurred just before the surrender of General Lee, the news of which he was anxious to hear. Relinquishing a good position, in July, 1863, Mr. Robinson enlisted, and was enrolled in the United States navy and credited to the quota of New Hampshire.
Before her marriage Mrs. Robinson had made jackets for the State militia in Worcester, and she continued to work for the soldiers throughout the war. She had many kinsmen and friends in the army, to whom she frequently sent letters and supplies. She was an eye-witness of the departure of numerous companies and regiments, as they passed through Worcester, and a frequent visitor at Camp Lincoln and Camp Scott in that city. "These scenes," she says, "are vivid in my mind and will never be erased."
When the Grand Army of the Republic began its beneficent work, Mrs. Robinson renewed her efforts for the veteran, in whose welfare she had never ceased to take an interest. She was a charter member of Relief Corps No. 11, auxiliary to George H. Ward Post, No. 10. The Hon. Alfred S. Roe, a Past Commander of Post No. 10, refers to her local Grand Army work as follows:—
"From the beginning Mrs. Angle Adele Robinson has been one of the most enthusiastic and efficient workers in the Relief Corps of Worcester. Seeing her brother go into the service as a member of the Fourth New Hampshire Infantry, and herself wedded in 1861 to William Lyman Robinson, who did his patriotic duty in the navy in those troublous days, it was very natural that her very being should be bound up in the progress and issue of the struggle. It was her fortune as a girl to help make jackets worn by the Massachusetts militiamen in their April trip to Baltimore and Washington, giving to the work all the time there was, Sundays included. As a wife and mother she could tell the whole story of the anxiety which followed the absent husband and father. Her interest in the families of indigent and suffering veterans did not await for its application the organization of the Relief Corps. Long before the good women of the land had formed their invaluable band, she had sought out and helped relieve the wants of many a suffering household. Thus, when the organization was projected, she was ready to become one of the earliest members and one of the workers from the start. Serving in the home corps in about all the offices there were, she has repeatedly represented the same in the State and national bodies. Among the many excellent presiding officers whom the local and department organizations have had, it will not be too much to state that no one has ever performed her duties more intelligently or effectually. Thoroughly posted in the working programme of the order, ready in thought and speech, graceful in action, her accomplishment of each and every assignment is a source of pleasure and pride to her friends; but, above all, her loyal devotion to the ends and aims of the Relief Corps, namely, the helping of those in distress, marks her as one of the most successful and gracious of Worcester's women."
Mrs. Robinson has been a prominent participant in the State conventions of the Woman's Relief Corps for many years. She has been a member of the Department Executive Board, Department Junior Vice-President, Senior Vice-President, and at the annual convention held in Boston, February, 1899, she was unanimously elected Department President. Her tact, good judgment, and business ability were manifest throughout the year.
In the discharge of her duties while thus standing at the head of over fourteen thousand women, she attended many gatherings under the auspices of posts and corps in all sections of the State. Referring in her report to this part of her duties, she said:—
"Of the very many invitations received the past year, I have been able to accept all, except where dates conflicted and then I detailed ​ one of the department officers to represent the department. As I look back, it seems as if I had been on the road the entire year, arriving at my home for Sundays only. I cannot take the space to enumerate all the different gatherings that I have attended, but they have been many. I began like a dutiful citizen by paying my respects to our Governor, and closed by attending the dedication of the beautiful hall of Hartsuff Corps, of Rockland. Among the delightful occasions was the reception tendered me by my own corps, March 11, 1899: and it is a pleasure to know that the honor that had come to one of its members was so highly appreciated by the members of the corps."
Intensely loyal to the Grand Army of the Republic and pleased to note that all the corps in the department were working in harmony with their posts, she urged the making of greater efforts to assist them in the years to come. At the reception given in Berkeley Temple at the close of her administration, February 14, 1900, her work was referred to in complimentary terms by John E. Gilman, who that day retired from the office of Department Commander, and by other prominent friends. Mrs. Robinson subsequently resumed her active work for the local corps in Worcester, serving on the Relief Committee, of which she has been a member eighteen years.
During the years of the Spanish-American War she gave nearly six months of her time to the work of the Volunteer Aid Association. Major Edward T. Raymond, clerk of the Central District Court of Worcester, who was officially identified with the volunteer Aid Association work in that city, thus refers to her services:—
"Mrs. Angle Adele Robinson, of Worcester, was among the first to rally to the assistance of the soldiers of the late war with Spain and their families. Her work from May IS, 1895, to November 3, 1898, was having charge of the relief and relief workers established by the Worcester Volunteer Aid Association. During the time she assisted some four hundred soldiers and their families. She worked early and late, and it was work of the most trying and nerve-exhausting kind. To answer the thousands of questions and endure at times the somewhat ungracious remarks of those who were seeking help fell to her lot. She solicited clothing of all kinds, and fitted out many soldiers' families. Only those who have passed through a similar experience can understand what she passed through. Her work was performed not for pecuniary reward, Mrs. Robinson having volunteered her services. The Executive Committee of the Volunteer Aid Association passed a vote commending her work and thanking her for her faithful attention to the suffering soldiers and their families."
By invitation of the Woman's Unitarian League of Worcester, Mrs. Robinson recently prepared and read a paper upon the Volunteer Aid work, which she also read by request at Northboro, Mass., and also before the Ladies' Society of the Central Church. This paper, which is a record of experiences in a work that will always be memorable, she designated by the title "The Summer's Campaign on the Home Side."
Mrs. Robinson is a member of the District Nurse Association of Worcester, also of the Woman's Employment Society, a charitable organization which assists women and children. Mr. Freeman Brown, clerk of the Board of Overseers of the Poor of Worcester, pays the following tribute to her work of charity:—
"In the first place, Mrs. Robinson is a noble woman. By nature, by training, by environment, by devotion to duty, by living for the benefit and comfort of others less fortunate than herself, she is a splendid representative of true New England womanhood, the best in the world. Her work in the Woman's Relief Corps, both locally and in the State, is a matter of record, known throughout the country. It is a record of which every resident of Worcester is proud, and in thus honoring her city and her State she has brought honor upon herself. With the volunteer Aid Association during the Spanish-American War in 1898, Mrs. Robinson did grand service for the boys who fought under the stars and stripes. Her work in this connection, like that in the work in the Woman's Relief Corps, is also a matter of record.
" For four years Mrs. Robinson has been a visitor of the Worcester Employment Society, visiting poor families regularly each month in the year. It is of her unrecorded charitable ​work and ministration of comfort to those in distress that I will speak. While Mrs. Robinson has found time to perform an enormous amount of work of a pul)lip nr semi-public nature, she has also pinched out an hour or day from such work to visit the unknown sick, to collect and disburse comforts and delicacies to those in distress, and to give a guiding hand in the affairs of families helpless because of in- efficiency or shiftlessness. One or two specific cases described is better than a column of generalities. One family to which she was called consisted of a husband, wife, and eight small children. Husband a drinking man, wife a drinking woman, who had led a life of debauchery and was in the last stages of consumption. Home barren of furniture and even of the commonest utensils of a kitchen outfit. To this miserable home Mrs. Robinson went out one night and nursed the sick woman for several days, until the poor unfortunate passed on to the great majority. Few women occupying Mrs. Robinson's sphere in life would have deigned to leave their own comfortable homes and become a nurse in a stranger's house, and still fewer the number who would venture into a household of squalor and vermin to perform the noble service."
Mrs. Robinson is a member of the Benevolent Committee of the First Universalist Church of Worcester, and is one of the leading workers of the church. The Rev. Almon Gunnison, D.D., President of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., a former pastor, thus speaks of her: —
"Mrs. Robinson has been for many years prominently associated with the First Universalist Church of Worcester, Mass. She has held the position of president of the Ladies' Social Circle, one of the largest and oldest organizations of the church. The position called for many and varied duties, all of which she dis- charged with marked ability. Possessing great dignity of manner, she presided over the meetings of the organization with grace and force, fulfilling the manifold executive functions of the place with great skill and tact. A forceful and graceful speaker, she was conciliatory in manner, and had great energy in pushing to completion her various plans. Mrs. Robinson has never permitted her public work to interfere with or mar her administration of her home. Her husband and children mingle admiration with their affection, for she has ever been .solicitous in looking after their welfare. The home has been the place to which the children have ever returned with pleasure, and the wife and mother has omitted no duty. One of her daughters is a student at St. Lawrence University."
Of her experience in relief work, Mrs. Robinson says: "I have taken pleasure in giving my time, means, and efforts to this work. It is a great education in many ways, and has assisted me in a knowledge of how to bring up my children, which, for all this outside work, I have done, having never in any way neglected their education or good health. I believe a mother should mingle with the world and take an interest in matters outside the home, in order to be capable of teaching her children as they should be taught. A mother is—or should he—a teacher through her entire life to her children."
Mr. and Mrs. Robinson have six children, namely: George K., born February 11, 1864; Angle 'M. (now Mrs. Ewen), born May 19, 1867; William L., Jr., born August 25, 1871; Harry C, born April 7, 1873; M. Beatrice, born April 29, 1880; Sarah Isabel E., born December 21, 1881. All were born in Worcester except the eldest daughter, whose birthplace is Cambridgeport, Mass. The three sons are prosperous business men, and Harry C. is also prominent in musical circles.