Club Minutes: Mutual Improvement Association, 1896-1900

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on Dr. Greggs Discourse". He is pastor of the Presbyterian Church Brooklyn and vicinity paid a beautiful tribute to the society of friends. Grace Harvey "Ring a Boy" a cute little article for the young crusader by Charles Dudley Garner. Eleanor Hough "Some Rambling Thoughts" which was very good taken from "The London Telephone." Edith B. Farquhar as a continuation of her mother's article gave us a very interesting account of Mrs. Rorer's mode of killing & preparing chickens, frying oysters & a number of valuable links gain by hearing her lecture. Martha Holland an account of Miles Standish the "Puritan Captain." Sallie Bond a poem by Ella Wheerler Wilcox. Carrie L Brooke " If I should die tonight" The author is thought to he Henry Ward Beecher. Albina O. Stabler about happiness and another article "Five Generations" by Marietta Holly. Ellen Farquhar two verses by Edward Ferris's daughter Kitty Ferris and she proposed the name of Eliz. C Davis as a member with which the meeting approved and Ellen Farquhar was asked to inform her of the fact.

Sarah T. Miller gave a sketch of Rose Hardwicke Thorne who wrote the immortal " Curfew Shall not Ring tonight"

S. L. Thomas " The Difference Between

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House keepers and Home makers". A committee consisting of Albina O. Stabler Eliz. G. Thomas and Annie F. Gilpin was appointed to write a short memorial of our dear friend and member Jane T. Porter and present at next meeting. After a vain effort was made to induce several different members to act as secretary for the coming term Mary Bentley Thomas cut the Gordian knot by volunteering to serve for one year and she was invested with all the honors and emoluments immediately. * Sarah J. Miller made a suggestion that the members should feel at liberty to serve a lunch instead of an elaborate meal especially when it suited the hostess best to do so which was approved. Then adjourned to meet at Sarah. A Bond's at 2 O'Clock 3/25/97 Mary E. Moore Secretary pro tem

* Was still serving in Feb 1919.

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Evergreen The Association gathered at Evergreen 3/25/97 with a good attendance of members the following guests Caroline H. Miller, Cornelia N. Stabler, Carrie S. Bond, Elinor Hough, Edith Hallowell, Eliz. T. Stabler, Mary Pope of Boston, Clara P. Moore, Sarah E. Kirk & Grace Parseley.

Beautiful flowers were contributed by several, a large bouquet of scarlet & white lilies being especially noteworthy.

The com. consisting of Eliz. G. Thomas, Anna F. Gilpin, & Albina O. Stabler produced a memoir of Jane T. Porter which was highly commended & accepted with thanks. It was decided to place this testimonial upon our records & to send a copy to the family of our deceased friend.

Anna F. Gilpin read the memoir and she also gave an appropriate poem entitled "Recompense" which had never been bapitised in printers ink but was well worth publication. Sarah A. Bond's sentiment for the day was "Patience is like the pearl among gems. By its quiet radiance it brightens every human grace and adornes every Christian excellence". Ester Wetherald read without spectacles a pretty little Canadian story of the "Bell of St. Regis" which, purchased in Europe by Catholic Indians was wrecked on the

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New England coast & hung in a Protestant Church at Deerfield Conn. It was eventually reclaimed by force & carried to Canada triumphantly to swing & peal in the steeple for which it was intended & summon Indians to prayer. Sarah H. Stone offered a new anecdote of Martha Washington who in plain attire calmly pursued her knitting of the General's hose while entertaining fashionable callers. Hadassa J .Moore wrote an affectionate note to her friends in council & she sent an obituary of Eliza Parker who died in Phila. 1851

Eliz. G. Thomas selected some admirable thoughts from "The World Beautiful" by Lilian Whiting; a strong appeal for cheerfulness & right living; wrong is a state of spiritual corosion." If a trouble can not be cured to dismiss it from our minds is best wisdom. Happiness is largely a thing of habit, therefore acquire the faculty of expecting success. The final thought in all work is not that we have more but do more. Not higher places but greater worth. Not for fame but for knowledge. Sarah E. Stabler read from the same of which the above is a brief synopsis and she presented a letter from The Bruen Home No 1135 - 9th St. N W Washington D C where unfortunate girls are sheltered and if possible reclaimed asking

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aid for this truly charitable institution.

Ellen Farquhar gave some extracts from a lecture by Mrs. Caroline H. Dahl upon the history of Trancendentalism in New England which she claimed stretched from the time of Anne Hutchinson to the death of Margaret Fuller. Mrs Dahl pronounced a glowing eulogy upon the lives & characters of both these remarkable women. The secretary was reminded by this of a piece of Louisa May Alcott in a story where the scene is laid in a "Community" she terms this experiment of founding an impossible Arcadia "the sowing of Transcendental wild oats."

Mary Willis Kirk read "The Buried Streamlet"

Margaret S. Hallowell had no contribution & Sarah T. Miller had left hers at home.

Mary Pope, a visitor, read an amusing letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes to James T. Fields which brought out the incident of a few years since, the daughters of Dr. Holmes & Lucretia Mott fell into a long conversation while travelling side by side from Wash. to Phila. & were mutually astonished at each others personality only revealed as they parted. A member, whose name we omitted to note, told us of the belated gift to the first girl