Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-02-06
FOR CLUB WOMEN.
The Brilliant President of the
N. E. w. P. A.
Mrs. Gosse's career-At the N. E. Wom-
ans Club Worcester at the At
tleboro Federation.

! Mrs. Elizabeth Merritt Gosse, the new.
president of the New England Woman's
Press Association, was born in Salem
few years before the breaking out of
the war, of a line distinguished in pat
r1otlc and intellectual achievements.
She was educated in the public and pri-
yate schools of Salem, the Chelsea high
school, the Salem normal school and the
| Rockford Woman's College of Rock
ford, Ill. She early displayed literary
| ability stories and poems from her pen
/ While yet a school girl being printed
| in the Boston Commonwealth, the
| Christian Register and other papers,
says the Boston Traveller.
After her marriage and removal to
Boston, Mrs. Gosse began a series of
Boston Letters" which were extensive
! ~ copied by Boston papers and led to
! her receiving requests for her work
from three of the leading Boston jour
nails. In 1888 she went to Bar Harbor
as a society correspondent for the Bos-
ton Transcript and other papers. Here
the fine and delicate quality of her work
became so apparent that it was copied
by society editors from Maine to Cali
/ fornia
Returning to Boston in the fall, the
Boston Herald sent her to LenoX as it's
correspondent, and she has since held
an honorable position on the staff Of
that paper, having had, in five Of its
departments. a more varied and pictur-
esque career, probably, than any other
| newspaper woman in New England.
Passing from the society department Of
| the Herald, then conducted by Max
Eliot" Mrs Gosse went into the depart
ment OF special writer's whose chief was
Mr.. John 3. Wright, now editor of the
Haverhill Gazette, and under whose care
she received a rare training in editorial
and political work. Upon the CONSOLE
/ dat1on of the special and city depart
ments of the Herald, Mrs. Gosse for
three years did hard service for her pa
| per, gaining an invaluable experience
| in reportorial work. Among her feats
| We're the reporting of the great cos
/ tune ball of the Boston Artists Asso-
citation, given a number of years ago
! IN the art museum, when four men re-
porters and several artists worked I'M
| der her direction the reporting of a
| convention in fremont Temple for
which the Herald paid her the sum of
$lO2, said at that time to be the largest
! check ever paid to a woman journalist
| IN New England for one weeks work:
and the reporting of the eYolutions of
the North Atlantic squadron off the
coast or Maine, when she was the guest
Oh Admiral Gheradi, and the only pas
Senger allowed by the secretary Of the
navy on the flagship Philadelphia.
During all this time Mrs Gosse was
DONG the work of special correspondent,
under the direction of Mr. H. S. Kemp
ton, head of the department of New
England correspondence. She has trav-
eled hundreds of miles in the service of
her paper, accompanying President
Cleveland, President Harrison and the
late Secretary Blaine upon long Jour-
neys. She went to Washington to meet
Secretary Blaine upon the occasion of
his resignation from Harrison's cabinet,
came to Boston with him and Mrs.
Mrs. Blaine, stayed with them during
their three days detention at the Bruins
wick while awaiting the news from the
Minneapolis eonvention-the only
woman IN a small army of representa-
tives of the press of Boston, New York,
| Washington, Chicago, ST. Louis and
other cities-and she was with Mr..
Blaine when he received and read the
dispatch announcing Mr. Hafrison's
nomination, and the death blow of his
hopes
AS a special correspondent her work
has been of intense interest. She has in
terYiewed Presidents Cleveland and
|
cabinets. She learned from the lips of
Cardinal Gibbons that Archbishop Car
rigan would not be deposed, being sworn
to secrecy by that prelate, and her in
| terviews with his eminence were copied
into nearly every Catholic publication in
the country She carried the news of the
death of James Russell Lowell to Presi-
dent Eliot at his summer home at Seal
Harbor, and later the tidings of that of
George William Curtis driving in each
instance % miles at midnight, over the
roads of Mt. Desert, to telegraph his
tributes to these great men to her paper.
During the last presidential campaign
she remained in the state Of Maine until
after the state election, reporting the
speeches Of Secretary Carlisle, Hon,
| Charles Emory Smith, General o. o.
Howard, ex-Secretary Tracy and other
prominent politicians.
Five years ago, Mrs. Gosse, discerning
the wonderful development of the
woman's club movement, established the
| department of among the Women's
Clubs'' in the Sunday Herald. Handling
| from the very first of their formation
the work of the patriotic societies for
her paper, in October last the depart
ment Of Colonial and Patriotic was
placed in her charge. Besides these two
departments she does much special
work for the New York Mail and Elk
press, and the New York Herald, with
frequent magazine articles in such pub
| LEGATIONS as Harper's Bazaar, the Wide
Awake, the New England Magazine and
the North American Review. She has
not had a days vacation in nine years,
but she says, II have my compensation
and my happiness, in flowers, music,
open fires and my dogs"
The MiddIesex Women's Club of Low
ell is contemplating an important step,
no less a one than the renting of new
and expensive club quarters in a down
town block The annual rental will be
$1,000, and in order to cover this, it is
proposed to increase the membership
from 450 to 600. There is waiting list
of $50. Some object, on the score of loss
of sociability, but as happens with other
clubs, any fellowship that existed was
lost when the membership was in
creased from 100 to its present num-
bers.
Friday the Home Club met with Mrs.
George Green, 4O4 Pleasant street. The
quotations were from R. D. Blackmore.
Amsterdam; its royal palace and its
churches" was the subject Of a paper
by Mrs. HARDWOOD. A paper by Miss
Susie Partridge upon Rembrandt and
His pictures was read by Mrs. f. M.
Harris. Miss Russell gave a reading,
ITO a stork.
At the meeting this week, which will
be with Mrs. Harris, the quotations
will be from Sidney Laurier. Mrs. Hi
ram Barnard will give a paper on THE
new south and some southern writers"
Mrs. Horace Kendall one on George w.
Cable and Charles Egbert Craddock";
and Mrs. Wilbur Hobbs will give a re-
view of aTom Grogan.'