Connecticut western news., 1880-08-11
AN AMERICAN WOMAN.
A Life Ended that was Marked by Unobtrusive Deeds of Love
 and Charity.


 The Philadelphia Ledgcr says: There are some lives, delicate and reserved as they are, that still belong to the world, as a part of its helping history. Whether of men or women, it is good for all hu- man kind to know. their story at the only time when it can be told-when they are gone. Mrs. Sarah Creole, of this city, whose death at New Haven is an nounced, was so identified with Phila- delphia charities, so entirely a part of both its social and benevolent activity, that it is proper to speak of the loss to this city of this abundant and richly gifted life. There are some natures that are blasted and scared with sorrow ; there are some that gro- the more fruit full and fuller by their private losses and griefs. When the young widow of Lieut.. Col. Creole, after his death. at Big Bethel, very early in tho war, came to make her home in Philadelphia, she was but girl in years. Three years had held for her the romance, the happiness, and the tragedy of lIfe-her betrothal marriage, motherhood, happy wife hood, and her husbands death. She was identified by all her associations with a military life. Her father, the Rev. MT. French, was Chaplain at West Point during her girlhood, and her hus- band, then Lieut. Creole, was an assist ant Professor at the post just previous to the war. By temperament brilliant, with a smile that brought sunshine wherever it fell, of a nature singularly devoted, even the deep grief and shock of her young widowhood did not throw this self-sustained and noble character into gloom and selfshness of grief. From the time of her adop tion of Phila- delphia as her home, in the household of her father-in-law, MT. Edwin Creole, she was ceaselessly giving herself, spend ing herself, for others. As was natural, the war and the soldiers had the first claim on her, but the Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity found her most energetic and successful worker. Her public usefulness had its start in these two channels that afterward broadened out in so many streams that there was scarcely any broad enterprise among Philadelphia women that did not have, or seek to have, her presence and in- fuence in it. She was identified with the Soldiers Home, with the Lincoln Institute, and with the Sunday of Trinity, especially with the infant school of the Memorial Chapel, of which she was the moving spirit for six or seven years, until compelled by increas- ing responsibilities to resign this charge. Of late years her interests were decidedly given to the advancement and special help of her own sex. She was an active manager of the Woman's Hospital, an untiring director of it's Training School for Nurses.H Her hospital experience, when the nurse-training school had a portion of its term in the woman s wards of Blockley Almshouse, was another call on her generous nature. She would leave her home late in the evening to carry over old linen for bandages, or other comforts to patients there, or to sit by deathbed in the city Almshouse, by pauper's deathbed, to whom this brilliant favorite of society felt it her woman's privilege to minister. The same charm of manner, the same radiant loveliness that made her sought and dis tinguished in the social world, was poured out at the feet of the poorest or most friendless creature that lay dying in an almshouse ward.
 But such unnoted thoughtfulness gives no idea of the working force that Mrs. Creole brought to all the institutions with which she was connected. She "liked drudging," she was accustomed to- say, and though we'll qualified for leadership, seldom took the lead, except in doing the hardest work. She would be busy often until long after midnight, copying, with her own hand, circulars, appeals, notices of meetings, and other business routine worlz 6alsalh her name never appeared, but When Fsaved the paid services of clerk or secretary to such struggling charities as claimed her aid, and these laboss went on simultaneously with the control:, of large household,of which she was the housekesper and head. There was never more teffder mother; with all this amount of public work, she was as wise and devoted a counselor to her two children as many woman who never sends tho1gM beyond her own doorstep. She was actively interested, and Director, in the Women's Club, on Girard street, in its multifarious work. The Cooking School, the Country Week, had her counsel and her labors until fail ing health compelled her to renounce, all at once. her active share in the pub lie work: The Horticultural Society held her beautiful presence with 1t, in it's social evenings, as centre of attrac- tion; when the Meade Memorial is com pleted her name will be found among its most faithful workers. With all her strong social nature she never laid aside her simple mourning dress, and her widows veil made her seem, as in truth she was, Sister of Charity in the midst of @ brilliant entertainment, one of the most distinguished in any company.
 Her death was sudden, but not unex. pected. For more than year her phy. sician had given no hope of relief from her exhausting disease. But the end came to her in sleep so tranquilly that those who watched her most tenderly did not know the precise moment of hel release. Such life is 8 loss unspeak. able in the many charities-the large