Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1895-06-08

ers That Is Not Charity-Miss NJ. n.
Fisher and the Home Hotel-Its Found
ing, Policy and Guests.
A modest little card tackled to the
front door of handsome brick house in
st. AIMS avenue, near One Hundred
and Thirty fifth street, announces to the
world tho existence of a hotel which
embodies a womans idea and efforts in
tightening the burdens of other persons.
Among refined and congenial surround
ings the guest of this house, which is
called the Home hotel and is open to
both men and women, may have a cozy
room and good fare for very little more
money week than an orchestra chair
at theater COSTS and if she happens to
be struggling against fate with an empty
pocketbook she may have the same &C.
commodations for nothing at all until
fortune smiles.
Yet the hotel is not charitable in
stitution. A moro valuable possession
than money is required to give you en-
try there. You must have brains, and
they must be brains, moreover, that are
refined and polished by education and
culture for tho hotel is conducted for
authors, musicians, teachers and men,
bers of other professions who find tenn
porary difficulty in wringing dollars
from an unappreciative world, and for
those who are incapacitated by age or
illness from earning money.
A courtly old gentleman opens the
front door to the needy brainworker
who comes for tho first time and bows
tho caller into the parlor, with the i'll
formation that Miss - will attend
her presently. A very pleasant first i'm
preston of the hotel is received while
waiting here These parlors seem in
stinct with informality and sociability
The plain, substantial furniture; the
piano, with it's loose and apparently oft
turned sheets of music; the well thumb
cd magazines and books, the portraits
and engravings, combine to remind one
of an old fashioned country house
where hospitality and simplicity dwell
and ostentation has no place.
The door opens softly, and sweet
faced woman enters. In manner full
of charm and tact she asks the necessary
questions, and tho caller is invited to
como again on certain day. Mean
whilo her credentials are carefully in
vestigated If the result is satisfactory,
q warm welcome awaits her on her sec
ond visit, and she becomes one of the
little company whose ambitions in art
or literature have not yet been realized
or arc Worn out with the efforts Of
lifetime. She pays whatever she can af-
ford, from 81 week to 81, and sympa
thy and material aid, where possible,
are extended to her i'll her work.
Professional persons over 50 may be-
como life guests by the payment of $500,
which is raised by relatives or church
society, and sometimes by the patrons
of the homo. There are at present about
90 guests i'll tho four connecting houses,
to which tho hotel has been enlarged.
They are not all without means. A
number pay full rates for board, and
live i'll the hotel because of its society of
clever, interesting persons and the at
mosphcre of refinement and LONELINESS.
The founder of the hotel and the pres
idcnt of the association, which includes
among it's members many prominent
New York men and women, is Miss
Mary A. Fisher.
"Our hotel" as was told to report
or i'll a visit there, occupies field of
usefulness all its own. There are au-
thors' and actors funds and charitable
organizations, but we do not feel that
we are conducting charity. We are
simply providing home for brainwork-
ors who have earned rest, and for am
bilious educated persons whose present
means might not otherwise enable them
to live amid congenial surroundings.
ga beautiful house in Hampstead,
England, where governesses, grown old
in their profession, could live out their
lives in peace and restfulness, suggested
tho idea of the hotel to me. And after
ward, here in New York. it came to me
again with striking force. In wretch
cd room in tenement house | found an
aged musician and composer in his last
illness.
Don't send me to an almshouse,
he begged. Let mo die here l am used
to the cold, and those old bundles of
music pointing with trembling fin
ger to the rude shelf above his bed filled
with his manuscript music, are COM
panions They are like children to me.
"On another occasion friend wanted
some writing done, and a publisher rec
commended an u.hor and his wife who
wrote for livelihood. In East Eleventh
street, amid almost squalid surround
ings, we found these cultured people.
They were called successful writer's,
their special field being biography and
history, but they accepted the work
eagerly, ON any terms. We asked no
questions. None were necessary. The
pinchcd look on their child S face and
their own pallor told the story of priva-
ton.
"Theso and similar experiences open
cd my eyes to the great need Of hotel
like ours, and after many discourage
ments started. 1t was eight years ago
years that have given me a wealth of
experience and shown me some of the
strangest and most pathetic phases of
human nature. Around my table have
gathered geniuses who were half mad,
confused by the luxuriance Of their own
ideas; inglor1ous Millions who were per-
haps too far ahead of their times to gain
recognition; young persons Of ardent
ambitions, which have since been real
lied i'll some cases; noble men and wom-
en- who lacked but one qualification
that of getting money. Among the sad
dest cases are tho widows who after
years of comfort and atfiuence are thrown