The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-05-10
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MONUMENT TO BE
ERECTED TO CATHERINE COLE.

Last night In New Orleans concert
was given at the st. Charles orpheun.
the proceeds of which will be devoted to
a monument which that city proposes to
erect to the late Catherine Cole (Mrs,
M. r Field. In this movement there
are countless thousands who will be
deeply interested and who feel that what
ever form the memorial will assume It
will speak to present and to future gem
erations of the work of one of the south s
best beloved women.
So highly esteemed and so greatly hon
ored was this Catherine Cole in her own
city that the suggestion to erect to her
memory suitable memorial has crystal
lied until all New Orleans has become in
terested in the movement.
Her work needs no memorial in the
hearts of the living, for those who knew
| her personally will ever cherish her mem.
DRY while still a larger class who know
her only through her writings and who
are not ignorant of her noble work need
no reminder of Catherine Cole. But as
| the years slip away, as one by one of
those who now speak her name In rever-
ence and with tenderness pass into the
great beyond, there will be many left to
whom the story of Catherine Cole will be
told. 1t seems most fitting that a memo
rial that will be to some extent express
sive of her beautiful life should speak
then to another generation of a woman
honored and loved by all classes of peo-
pie.
In reference to the proposed monument
the Picayune says:
LAS already announced in the Picayune
a movement Is on foot in this city to
erect monument to the memory of the
late lamented Catherine Cole Mrs.
Martha A. Fleld) Exactly what form
this memorial will take is not at present
! decided upon, but that there should be
a monument to this gifted and distln-
| guished woman is the concensus of opin-
ion among the leading people of the city.
mo woman was better known in the
south or more truly honored than Cath
crime Cole. For fifteen years, every
week. her letters in the Sunday Picay-
une were eagerly waited for by thou
sands, and under the non de plums,
chosen when a girl the woman became
famous. Later. Mrs. Field became iden-
titled with the staff of the Times Demo-
orat, and there, as on the Pcayune. she
sympathy and interest of the people,
When disease fastened itself upon her
the hearts OF the populace went out to
Catherine Cole, and many were the pray
ers offered that the gifted and brilliant
| journalist who had performed a work in
New Orleans that no other womaj. could
perform, would be spared to continue her
great power of usefulness
She died and left a place in the heart
of this city and state that has remained
untitled To the classes and masses,
though dead, Catherine Cole still speaks,
because of the beautiful and lofty prln-
ciples she could inculcate, the place she
made for wage-earning women of the
working world, the respect, the dignity
that she commanded for those of her sex
who had to face these conditions of life
alone. 1t was through the work of such
women as Catherine Cole and Mrs. Mich
olson. the pioneers that paved the way,
that the working women OF today in this
| city and state command the respect and
honor that they do. These women in their
| brave and earnest way. dignified labor
and made it the ladder whereby other
women might rise to nobler and better
planes of useful endeavor while earning
| a livelihood.
| at is some years now SINCE Mrs. Field
! has passed away, but her memory is
fresh and green as though 1t were only
yesterday she was laid to rest. The peo-
pie cannot forget her; the beautiful life
| nj nnselnSb deviation that aha 1aa no
homes that she entered through her
| matchless pen, the hearts she comforted,
the souls she strengthened cannot forget
| the friend and helper who stole into their
| hearts and whispered the right word just
| at the right time and built a bridge over
the chasms of lost hope that brought
| them to the fruition of nobler dreams than
they had yet cherished"