The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-15
COURAGE OF A WOMAN MINER.
American Girl Initiates the LASS of
Lowries.''

L0WrieS.
Mrs. Frances Hodgeson Burnetts
| heroine, that Lass o. Lowrie's," has
! been duplicated in a small mining vii
| lage of Pennsylvania. The girl in
question was the daughter of an Epis~
copal clergyman and was a handsome
| creature, carefully nurtured and edu-
| Gated.
AT 16 Miss Julia fell in love with a
miner named Forest, a man of whom
her father disapproved and forbade his
visits, but Julia was true and event.
ually eloped with him. They were mar
| ried nearly year before her stern pa
rent suspected it. Their clandestine
meetings ere discovered and Julia
was driven from home, having no
mother to plead for her. The father
never fOrgave her.
After struggling a few years with
poverty, the usual mining strikes and
disasters, her husband met with an
accident which prevented him from
working again. In a coal mining ham,
let where all are poor, the opportuni-
ties for woman to work are limited.
But there were three little ones to sup
port and Julia began looking for the
way. She possessed strength and en-
ergy, and the greatest of all incentives,
love.
She soon found way to work for
her loved ones.
One day young man presented him
self to the mine boss for work, claim
ing to be John Forest, cousin Of Ju-
liza. He was told to go to work, and
every day for months John Forest
drove his mule in and out of the mine.
He was one of the best workmen in
the shift" always faithful and con-
scientious, never drunk on Monday
morning.
One morning there was an explosion,
and John, although not seriously in
jured, was carried out unconscious. A
doctor was brought and after admin
istering to the sufferers electrified the
mine boss by saying. Mrs. Julia For
est must not work in the mine again."
She had bravely taken her husbands
place in the mine While he kept watch
over the children. Evenings Mrs For
est, appearing in her natural attire,
would attend to the wants of the fam
lily, cooking, washing, sewing and striv-
ing to cheer her invalid husband, who
was, she knew, grieving himself to
death.
Dressed in her disguise, each day she
went out to work in the mine. After
her secret was disclosed some other
plan had to be adopted. AS there were
no stores in the place where she lived
orders to deliver goods from town,
eight miles distant.
1t was lonely life, but a heal h.
full one, and she soon recovered her
spirits.
In this she was successful, and, after
securing a mule and borrowing a dill
apidated wagon. which she mended and
painted, started her new enterprise.
The merchants became Interested in the
refined, energetic woman who came fer
orders and often paid her to- deliver
goods for them. At the end of year
Mrs. Forest had established a stage
from the mining village to town and
sold fruit and vegetables for the farm
ers. Soon after this her husband died
and with her three children to feed
and clothe she struggled on alone,
teaching them herself and attending to
her other duties.
OF course. the experience was not
without it's romantic side. Mrs. For
est was not only a "fOrehanded" wo-
man, she was attractive now thai the
strain of mine labor was no longer on
her.
Men seeing this wonderful woman ad-
mired her and sought to marry her,
but she steadfastly refused all offers.
Faithful to her first love, she preferred
living for his children. At last, after
many years of toll and devotion, she
was rewarded by seeing her two beau
tiful daughters, as gentle and good as
their mother had been. well educated
and provided with good homes.
Then her boy-the last the mothers
arms had Graded and on whose curly
head her tears had fallen as she knelt
by his couch and prayed that he might
be spared to noble manhood-her dar-
ling boy-wandered from her to strang-
ers, fell in with evil company ard one
night In drunken quarrel was stabbed
to death by a companion.
She brought him home and buried
him. Then the poor mothers work
was done. Her heart was broken. Low
ing hands laid her tn rest beside her
husband.-Chicago Chronicle.