Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1908-08-11
THE. LaTEELEANoR KIRK.
A Tribute to Her Life and Doetrine
by One Who Knew Her.

notable illustration Of her own
bright. optimistic philosophy was the
late. Eleanor Kirk. She advocated
steadily the power of an immortal soul
to rule its own body and environment.
What she wrote and taught mag be
known ee-om the titles of some OF her
books-"Preyention and Cure of Old
Age" Perpetual Youth" Where You
Are" 1.-The Bottom Plank of Mental
Healing" She held that the Creator
desires his children to be and to have,
all that is good. therefore gave them
divine power to lift themselves above
the dark, troubled waters of disease.
poverty and unpleasant surroundings.
The temptation to give down to dis
ease, bodily discomfort and old age is
as much to be resisted as yielding to
the moral temptation to steal and lie
This inspiring doctrine was what Flea
nor Kirk preached and practiced. She
did not believe in beginning to die
thirty years before your time comes.
Therefore Eleanor Kirk lived to the
age of seventy-siX years, with mind
bright, alert and receptive as it had
been when she was twenty. She be-
lieved in the power of an immortal
soul to manifest even physical come
illness so long as it remains on this
earth. and wherever she went stran-'
gers always asked. "Who is that beau
tiful woman with the white hair?"
When at last Eleanor Kirk passed
from this life it was not because of
sickness or old age, but the result of
accident. an injury received in a fall
at her home.
AS the world goes this teacher and
practicer of the cheerful doctrine that
In reality all is good had as hard a
life as falls to most At least that was
true the first half of it. before she her
self had lifted herself out of it. Her
maiden name was Ellen Maria Easter
brooks. In private life she was Mrs.
Ames. Eleanor Kirk was her nom
de plume She was born in Warren.
r. 1.
She was born, too. with intense feel
ing and sympathy, vivid imagination
and gift in the use of language. This
naturally fitted her to be writer. ant
writer she was from the beginning
She was also loving, devoted family
woman In the sixties she was left
with five little children dependent on
her for support. With her pen brave
Eleanor Kirk reared and nobly edu-
Gated these children. She was for
time a reporter and special feature
writer on the New York Standard. and
John Russell Young was her editor in
chief. In all weathers. in all places,
all hours of the day or night. Mrs.
Ames went wherever her work called
her. She went fearessly and IN
grudgingly too She never stopped for
a second to consider whether this or
that assignment was suitable for
woman She just went and fulfilled
the task.
One summer, when she went by the
sea she was in an unusually exhausted
state. She always kept home for her
children and attended to her domestic
affairs. That summer when she had
pulled herself and the family down by
the sea and set up housekeeping it
seemed to her she had come to the enc
of her rope mentally and physically
She felt as if she could not go step
further in the doing of two peoples
work She was of deeply spiritual
nature, which welled up in her as an
intense, living faith in God. In desper-
ate emergencies she always called on
! the great unseen power for help. and
help now, not next week or next year.
/ She told me she always got it, espe-
cially as, like the little girl with her
prayer. Eleanor Kirk did not bother
God about little things" These she
worked out by her own common sense
and industry.
On this special occasion, lying upon
the sands under the sky, with the sea
murmuring around her, she demanded
help from the unseen power which
she believed in. Instantly the answer
came to her in a conviction that she
would never have to do regular news
paper work again. 1t flashed through
| her consciousness that another means
of maintenance would open to her. It
l. did. From that time Eleanor Kirk be-
came a magazine and book writer.
Poet she always had been.
She was one of those grand, eter-
nally progressing souls that can throw
of and away old. wornout thoughts.
habits and notions and take on always
the new and the better as it comes to
light. Twenty years ago the variously
Icalled new thought, divine metaphys-
les, mental science doctrine-whateve
each ones preference pleases to name
lit-caught the open mind of Eleanor
Kirk 1t appealed to her as hardly
anything had ever done in her life be-
fore. With her perennially youth
full enthusiasm she seized upon it and
made it her own. She became one of
it's most eloquent and faithful ex-
ponents. Few of the new thought
writings are so earnest and impressive
as those Of Eleanor Kirk. Fifteen
years ago, with heart and soul full of