The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-11
Ucn1ell and ]! u: Society.
BY MRS. ,. M. DE C0TTHA

l Richmond to assist in maintaining the soldiers in the field.
 At the close of the war she founded in Baltimore the Electric Institute"
 at which many Southern girls were gratuitously taught She remained at it's head for eleve nyears, when an overstrain of the optic nerve obliged |. her to close it's doors and accept MT. Corcoran's invitation to enter the Louise Home. Of the life there Mrs. | Semple says: Although there are so many of us together we are compara- lively isolated. We go into the instr ! tuition as old women and the old 10TH | few friendships
 But while removed from the life cur | rent, and surrounded by those whose l work is ended, she retained her inter ] est in the events and movements or the :, day much beyond the usual limit. dis- l cussing them with clearness and force. She has numbers of visitors, her rooEi being frequented not only by prom nent people, but by some Of the iasn- l ionable as well, and her position as | former mistress Of the Wnite nouso has always been recognized by those occupying the Executive Mansion. The l McKinleys in particular were most at tractive to her, and during an illness which she then had the President sent | her dozens of boxes of flowers. AT 1 ter her recovery, to show her apprecia- | tion of these, she had. her portrait | fpainted when she herself was first lady i of the land)-copied for Mrs. Mckin- | ley, decorating the upper margin or | the photograph with a colored repre- ] senta ion of the United States flag, the Virginia and Ohio State flags being | on either side. During McKinley's ad- ministration her cousin MISS Snns ,as I Tyler, died at the home. She had led
 retired life and knew few people In 1 Washington, and the profusion of flow l CTS sent in excited surprise. At length l the President and his wife drove up. 1 leaving an elaborate design, when IL was discovered that the demonstra- l tions were occ;aSioned by the supposed l death of a former mistress of the 1 White House.
 Always punctilious, one of the trials l of her loss of sight is her dependence fuDon others to write for her, and her consequent inability to reply promptly to the many letters which she receives.
 Requests for her autograph are Ire ouent. and on one occasion little Western girl asking for 8 piece of one of her White House frocks, she wrote: l "Since the time to which you refer l have passed through devastating war; | when the gowns which then wore
 were made into Confederate flags or | otherwise disposed of."
 | l aver, she mailed 1t to her little corre- spondent and 1t was put into a quilt A jealous member of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Anti uuities, much of the pension of $50 a month which Mrs. Semple receives from | the government has been applied to the objects which the society represents. She marked the site of '"The Palace" in 1 Williamsburg. the home of the Royal lGovernors, with a monument which cost | $70O, and being present at its unveiling was the recipient of many attentions. 1 She has preferred to be her own exc cutor and those freQuenting her room
 miss from time to time the treasured
 objects with which she surrounded her self She gave the portrait of her
 father, painted with the pen in hand
 with which he vetoed the bank bill, and l which she considers his best likeness, and the one of her grandfather, John Tyler, the patriot" to the State Ld- tbrary in Richmond Her own portrait and those of her sisters were presented by her to William and Mary College. That of her mother, however, repre- senting her as she looked while at the Governors mansion and painted from an old daguerrotype, in Mrs. Semple
 room and under her direction, still hangs above her manteL
 Speaking of President Tyler's grave in Hollywood Cemetery, near Richmond, she says: My father directed in his
 will that his wife should select his burial place. When he died in Rich mond in 1862, however, the Virginia Legislature asked that the State might lhave his remains and voted an appro-
 priation of $1,O00 to the erection of a memorial stone. Owing to the poverty
 resulting from the war this sum was
 never applied for; and l planted over
 his grave. near that of Monroe the
 tree which shades 1t and q green rose.
 There is also a tablet to him in old
 Bruton Church. Williamsburg, which
 I placed there and which was con
 tributed to by every member of the family; and some years ago Congress
 voted that $10,000 should be devoted
 to rearing a monument In his honor
 which sum can be had whenever Nir-
 ginia asks for it"