Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1905-12-31

kQ1I with regard 70 womens names.
IoBHaOI In a generation from now they
~ believe large proportion Of mar
ried women will retain their girlhood
names through life.
One OF the mast famous Of the early
suffragists. Lucy Stone, set the example
a good many years ago, relates the New
York Sun. with the approval Of her hus-
band. Henry 3. Blackwell, she retained her
own name throughout her life, and their
daughter bears the family names Of both
parents, but Lucy Stone was too early
a pioneer to have any followers in her life
time in this matter.
Within the last few years a restlessness
about changing a name to which some hon.
orable reputation has become attached has
been showing itself among women. The
experience of a very popular woman novel
ist is in point.
When she married she began to write
under her new name. A prolonged wall
went up from the librarians of the whole
country, who had to recatalogue all her
books and enter into countless explana-
tons with their patrons. Her publishers
protested also, and after year or two
of the experiment she went back to her
own name on the title page.
A few years ago a woman very we'll
known as a lecturer and worker in a pub
lie movement married a second time She
was a widow and II was the name of her
first husband that she had made known.
She and her second husband decided that
she should retain this name, but the prac-
teal difficulties In the way proved too
great. Everybody who had ever heard OF
her understood the matter, and It was
all right But this is a big country, and
she would often find herself travelling with
her husband, who was wealthy man.
among persons who couldn't understand
at all how she could be Mrs. Brown and
he Mr.. Smith.
SO, after a few years. she gave up the
effort, although she regretted to do so,
as It was a principle with her.
That is the way 1t is beginning to look
TO a lot OF young women nowadays who
have led an independent career up to the
time of their marriage They are be-
ginning to ask why they should be obliged
10 give up their own names and take
others.
There is a young woman writer in New
York right now who is contemplating
matrimony in the near future and who
has persistently declared that she will not
change her name. OF course, 1t is under
SNpbu ludl Sllt snail COllllnut " Nillc uii-
der her own name, but that doesn't satisfy
her. She wants TO retain her name in
social life.
his notions as she is in hers, is entirely
willing but her mother is old fashioned
enough to object.
Really, Imogene," she says every time
the subject is mentioned, "how could l
introduce you as my daughter Mrs. Blank,
when that's my own name? People would
think you are my daughter-in-law, and
then they'd find out / haven't any son,
and then they'd think you were divorced,
and II would entail countless explanations.
And she looks so worried every time
she says it, that the writing girl has
sadly decided to submit to taking her
husbands name.
sign in the same direction is the al
most universal fashion nowadays among
married women Of dropping their middle
name, II they have one, and adopting for
their signature their given name, theil
family name and their husbands name
Girl babies very frequently get only one
name nowadays, with this particular fash.
ion in view.
Frances Willard taught all the women's
Christian Temperance union women years
ago TO use their own first names and tC
insist on being known as Mrs. Mary
Smith instead Of Mrs. John Smith.
The actresses, of course, are the great
examples of women in public life retaining
their own names through all vicisstudes
There is an elderly woman n New York wht
has been known in semi-public work fol
twenty-five years. She has been married
three times, and each time has changed
-.
by the new one She says now that If sh,
had it to do over again she would retain
her girlhood name through life.
On the continent 1t is not unusual for
husband to append his wife's name to hi
own. when 1t is an aristocratic one, AM
IN Spain the wife of a good family retain
her own name, and If II is the more distin
guished of the two her sons are quite likel,
to adopt IL instead of their fathers
In royal circles the queen always re
tains her own name and coat of arms
.
Woman "Runner" for Confederacy
At Port Tobacco. southern Maryland
where colonial customs still prevail and TIL
telephone and the telegraph are still al
most unknown, there was buried last weel
Miss Olivia Floyd, famous throughout tn
foreground railroad"
She became one Of the runners in the un
foreground railroad between Washington
and Richmond and although her place wa
surrounded and searched several times, S
sharp was her lookout and so careful he
conduct and so many her resources that tn
federal troops were never able TO cate
either her dispatches or conveys of mer
qhandse. She conveyed clothes, none
and letters through the lines from prison
ers.
One fugitive intrusted $4,000 in BAN
notes TO Miss Floyd She hid the money 4
the stufiing of hassock. Federal soldier
frequently searched the house, and even sa
upon the hassock ignorant that it con
tanned fortune. The full amount of thi
deposit subsequently was returned to tn
owner.
She assisted many escaped prisoners {
pass the line, hiding them in the woods an
feeding them until an opportunity for es
The Kantstoop"