The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-02-18
DEATH OF MISS WILLARD
LIFE OF THE w. c. r. u. PRESIDENT
ENDED AT MIDNIGHT.
One OF the Most Prominent Women in
perancc and Social Reform.

this city. At the bedside of Miss Willard at
the time of her death were her niece, Mrs.
w. w. Baldwin, Mrs. l.. NJ. Nj. Stevens,
vice president OF the Womans Christian
Temperance Union; Miss Anna NJ Gordon,
Miss Wizards secretary, and Dr. Alfred X.
Hill.
Miss Willard had been i'll for about three
weeks. DIR. Hill made the following state
ment tonight: Miss Willard had suffered
some years with profound anemia, and on
several occasions had been given up to die.
Last summer she seemed to take ON a new
lease of life and gained in weight and
strength so that she went through her con-
vention work at Toronto and Buffalo, which
was most arduous, and came out much bet
ter than was expected, but on her arrival
here five weeks ago she was much pros
trated and readily took the grip, which at
tackled the stomach, liver, intestines and
later the nervous system. The disease
progressed favorably, and in many respects
she had much improved when the fatal is
sue came and overwhelmed the nerve CEN
ters There was no cancerous degeneration
of any organ, as has been stated"
There will be funeral services in New
York city and later in Evanston, ILL.,, Miss
Wizards home, where the body will be
taken.
Frances Z. Willard was one of the best
known women in America. She would have
made success in any line of work that she
undertook, for her personality was forceful
and her will power great. 1t was W. T..
Stead who referred to Miss Willard as 1.-The
uncrowned queen of American democracy"
and in article in his magazine he wrote:
''She would have been a personality well
worth studying even if she had been max
er of sepulchers. AS a human she is in
many respects unique, as woman she oc-
cupies place by herself apart, but the SUI
preme Importance of Miss Willard consists
in the position which she holds to the two
great movements which, born at the close
of this century, are destined to mold the
next century as the movements born in the
French revolution have TRANSPORTED the CEN
fury which is now drawing to its close. The
emancipation of man and the triumph of
free thought, which were proclaimed by the
French revolution, were not more distinctive
of the eighteenth century than the emanci-
patton of woman and the aspiration after a
humanized and catholic Christianity are
characteristic of our own century. OF both
these movements Miss Willard is at TINS
moment the most conspicuous representa-
tive.
The Winards are an old English family.
The first American Willard was one OF the
founders of the famous town OF Goncor9
and notable figure in early New Englano
history. From him Miss Willard came
eighth in direct line of descent. Her mother
was a native of Vermont, where she Was
born in 1865. Her father, too, was a YER
monter. Frances was born Sept. Is, 1859, at
Churchvlle o. AS a child she Went 10
Wisconsin with her parents, living at For-
est Home on the Rock river from her sew
enth to her nineteenth year. She was eau,
Gated at the Milwaukee Female College and
later at the Northwestern University,
EN,ansfon and at nineteen became a school
teacher. From 1858 to 1874 she had thirteen
separate seasons Of teaching in eleven
towns, the pupils in all numbering about
Miss Willard in 1868 made a two years
trip to Europe with Miss Kate jackson;
Egypt the Holy Land Russia and all the
rest of Europe. This European trip was
Miss Wizards one experience of life, as
WorldlingS live it. She said: Three things
l did, once In awhile, during my two years
and four months of foreign travel, that
never did and never do at home. went
to see sights on Sunday, went to the the
alter and took wine at dinner. She learned
to love Rudesheimer and Grand Chartreuse,
Romans do, honestly avowing, as she still
vows that the forbidden pleasures were
sweet and were abandoned with sigh.
Miss Willard was thirty-tive years old
when she finally adopted temperance work
as her vocation although she was heredi-
tarily disposed to it, her father and mother
having been lifelong teetotalers and their
children being accustomed from infancy to
the representation of the case against alco-
hol 1t was not, however, until 1875 that
Miss Willard entered the temperance held
as a missionary. She soon in the heat
Of the fray in the cause of temperance, ana
shortly was chosen president of the Wom-
ans Temperance Society in Chicago. She
continued her labors in the local field, and
in the autumn of 1875 was instrumental IN
the founding of the National woman
Temperance Union, of which she was APP
pointed national secretary. In 1873 Miss
Willard began a systematic tour or the
American continent, addressing meetings
in every town in the Union of five thousand
or more inhabitants. In the ten years from
1878 to 1888 she averaged but three weeks a
year at home and addressed an average OF
one meeting each day during the whole OF
At Baltimore in 1873 proposal to indorse
WOman'S suffrage as a temperance measure
was rejected but the official organ was per-
mitted to publish reports of the work OF So
cietieS on that line. The next year at In
danapolis Miss Willard was elected presl-
dent of the National w. G. II. u, a post
which she has held ever since. Under nef
presidency the convention next year ue-
clared in favor of womans suffrage, ana
the whole work of the organization was re-
vised. Individual superintendent were SUB
stituted for committees on the principle
that IL Noah had appointed a committee
the ark would still have been on the
of Miss Wizards hearty sympathy with
every progressive movement there is no
need to speak Her absorbing idea for many
years was the combination of the labor,
the temperance and the woman's party. The
W. c. T. IT, is strong for arbitration as
against strikes, for shortened hours of
labor and for all that humanizeS and ele-
Yates the workmen. 1T is all for peace, for
purity and for the elevation of the standard
of beauty and of comfort in the homes of
the peoplef Nor must it be imagined that
Miss willard was opposed to amusements.
She wrote:
For the stage / have a strong natural
liking IN England / saw Sothern David
Garrick and it lifted up my spirit as a
sermon might. But in this age with my
purpose and its decentralization. the stage
is not for me. Somewhere, some time it
may have the harm taken out of it. but
where or when this generation and many
more to follow this will ask / fear, in
During recent years Miss Willard was
heard of and read of as doing so much
White Ribbon and social purity work that
her books made themselves prominent
places. Among her dozen best known works
are: "A Wheel Within a Wheel Hints
and Helps for the w. G. IT. IT," Woman in
the Pulpit" "A Classic Town" "A Young
Journalist and "Glimpses of Fifty Years. :"
In 1885, Miss Willard was the guest of Lady
Henry Somerset at the latters home in
Sept o. 1896, and since then had been up-
ceasing in her efforts to advance the cause
she loved.
Charles Doyle.