A cheerful little room in the East wing of St. Margaret's Hospital,
Kansas City, Kansas; an invalid chair wheeled up to a window over
looking the street; and the eager, expectant face and the warm hand
clasp of the occupant, Mrs. Cornelia M. Stockton, assures the visitor of
a hearty welcome.
Greatly enfeebled by long illness and with impaired sight, this bright,
little woman's keen interest in current events and the latest "best
seller" puts to shame the half-hearted zeal of the average woman.
For four years, Mrs. Stockton has lived at St. Margaret's, depending
upon the visits of friends and the memory of an eventful life to pass
the days. Prominence in club work in her earlier years has brought
reward. The History Club of Kansas City, Kansas, of which she was once a
member, each week sends a member to read to her and these are red letter
days to this brave, patient, little woman.
Mrs. Stockton began writing very young. When a little girl, back in the
village of Walden, New York, she stole up to the pulpit of the church
and wrote in her pastor's Bible:
"I have not seen the minister's eyes,
And cannot describe his glance divine,
For when he prays he shuts them up
And when he preaches he shuts mine."
She was born in 1833 in Shawangunk, New York, and came to Kansas City in
1859, living in Missouri some years but most of the time in Kansas City,
Kansas.
In 1892, she published a limited edition of poems, "The Shanar Dancing
Girl and Other Poems." dedicated to Mrs. Bertha M. Honore Palmer, her
ideal of the perfect type of gracious and lovely womanhood. "The Shanar
Dancing Girl" was first written for the Friends in Council, a literary
club of Kansas City, Mo. It has received the encomiums of Thomas Bailey
Aldrich, John J. Ingalls and others for its beauty of expression and
dramatic qualities. "Invocation," an April idyl; "The Sea-shell;" and
"Mountain Born" sing of the love of nature. "In the Conservatory;" "My
Summer Heart;" and "Tired of the Storm" hint of sorrow and unrest and
longing. Then in 1886, "Compensation" was written. "Irma's Love For
The King" is a favorite; also, "'Sold'--A Picture," written for her
daughter, "yes, but she never came.
"The Sorrowful Stone" Mrs. Stockton considers her best.
"The story without a suspicion of rhyme,
And dim with the mists of the morning of Time,
Is told of a goddess, who, wandering alone,
Did go and sit down on the Sorrowful Stone.
We find our Gethsemane somewhere,
though late;
The Angel of Shadows
throws open the gate.
We creep with our burden of pain,
to atone,
For all of life's ills,
to the Sorrowful Stone.
Above is the vault of the pitiless stars;
The trees stretch their arms all blackened
with scars;
The gales of lost Paradise are faintly
blown
To where we sit down on the Sorrowful
Stone."
"From a Poem 'Vagaries'" warns of * * *
--the product of the age and clime,
We do too much! grow old before our
time,
Yet--would we stray to Morning Hills
again?
Unlearn sad prophecies, and dream as
then!
Ah, no! with sense of peace the shadows
creep,
There droppeth on tired eyes the spell of
sleep--
We left the dawn long leagues behind, and
stand,
Waiting and wistful in the Evening Land!
The patient Nurse of Destiny, at best,
Leads us like children to the needed rest!
A ghostly wind puts out our little light,
And we have bid the busy world "Good Night!"
Mrs. Stockton was married twice. Her first husband was the father of her
two sons, one of whom, Dr. Henry M. Downs, in his practice, came often
to St. Margaret's. The second marriage, as the wife of the late Judge
John S. Stockton, was a very happy one. Last year, a brother the only
surviving member of her family, died, leaving Mrs. Stockton the last of
a family of five children. The two sons have also passed into the Great
Beyond.
In her younger days, she contributed many poems and some prose to
newspapers and magazines over the name of Cora M. Downs.
Ex-Gov. St. John appointed her one of the regents of the University of
Kansas.
Her beautiful poem: "In Memoriam" to Sarah Walter Chandler Coates was
her last.
"'We seem like children,' she was wont to
say,
'Talking of what we cannot understand,'
And in the dark or daylight, all the way,
Holding so trustfully a Father's hand.
And this was her religion, not to dwell
On tenets, creeds, or doctrines, but to
live
On a pure faith, and striving to do well
The simple duties that each hour should
give."
MARGARET HILL McCARTER.
The most successful Kansas woman writer financially and the most
prolific is Margaret Hill McCarter of Topeka. From the advent of her
little book in 1901, "A Bunch of Things, Tied Up With Strings" to
the hearty reception of her latest novel every step of the way spells
success.
Margaret Hill was born in Indiana and came to Kansas in 1888 to teach
English in the Topeka High School. Two years later, she became the wife
of Dr. William McCarter. Of this union there are two daughters, students
at Baker University and the Topeka High School and a young son, his
mother's literary critic.
A wife and a mother first, a Kansas woman second, and an author third is
the way Mrs. McCarter rates herself. She is capable of and does do all
her housework.
Her love for literature she owes to her mother, who believed in higher
education and taught Margaret to prize the few books that came her way.
After leaving the school room, the teacher instinct still strong within
her, she argued if she could teach out of books written by others,
why not out of books of her own? Then followed poems, short stories,
biography, textbooks, the editing of Crane Classics, "One Hundred Kansas
Women" and miscellanies.
In 1902, "Cuddy and Other Folks" was written and in 1903, "The
Cottonwood's Story."
This same year, "The Overflowing Waters," the story of the 1903 flood,
and one of her best bits of heart writing paid for the school books of
almost a thousand unfortunate children. "Cuddy's Baby" appeared in
1908, followed the next year with "In Old Quivera," a thread of Coronado
history. "The Price of The Prairies," three weeks after publication in
the fall of 1910, became Kansas' best seller. "The Peace of The Solomon
Valley" came out in 1911 and proved a popular gift book. "The Wall of
Men," Mrs. McCarter's 1912 offering should be one of the required books
in Kansas schools. It is authentic history and the close of the story
leaves every Kansan with a greater respect and love for the state and
the heroic pioneers who stood as a living wall between Kansas and the
slave question. 1913 gave us the "Master's Degree," considered by many
her best work. This year we have "Winning The Wilderness."
Mrs. McCarter founded the Club Member and organized the Sorosis, serving
as president seven years and two terms as president of the Topeka
Federation of Women's Clubs. Baker University, at Baldwin, Kansas,
gave her an honorary Master's Degree in 1909, its semi-centennial
anniversary.
BESSIE MAY BELLMAN. and JUNE BELLMAN HENTHORNE.
Bessie May Bellman and June Bellman Henthorne, her daughter, hail from
Winfield. They write both prose and verse and Mrs. Henthorne was a
reporter for years. Mrs. Bellman, when a girl, lived five years on a
cattle ranch and to those five lonely years she credits her habit of
introspection, meditation and writing. Much of her poetry and short
stories are used in platform work.
Red Leaves.
Red leaves--
Aflame in the air, aflame in the trees.
Blue streams, smoky hills--
Gold, gold the sunlight spills--
Red leaves!