A BEAUTIFUL LIFE AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS (SIGNED)

New York: The Historical Department of Iowa, 1899. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Octavo, 8.8 in. x 6.3 in., pp. xii, [3], 217. Inscribed and signed in large script, dated 1901, by the author on the front free endpaper. Illustrated with over 100 black and white photographs. Dark blue cloth boards with gilt title to front and spine. LIght rubbing to boards with a tough of sunning to spine. Light age-toning to pages. The author tells the true story of Drusilla Allen Stoddard (1821-1913), a missionary and college professor, who was known for thirty years to the boys and girls of Central College, Pella, as "Mother" Stoddard. She was born near Batavia, N. Y., in 1821. She was a graduate of the Emma Willard school at Troy, N. Y., 1815. She taught in a Quaker mission school among the Seneca Indians in western New York. In 1847 she was married to Ira Joy Stoddard, a young Baptist minister, accepting the faith of that denomination. For their wedding journey they sailed to India as missionaries. Here they worked for nine years and here their three children were born. In 1856 they were forced to return to America because of ill health,. In 1866 they returned to India, but again because of ill health returned to this country... In 1858 she went to Central College in Pella Iowa, which was founded in 1853, as a member of the faculty with her husband. She was a women of excellent scholarship, of great tact, and with a heart that mothered the boys and girls of the school. In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, one hundred and twenty pupils and teachers enlisted from Central College, only Mrs. Stoddard and President Scarff were left to keep the school; twenty-five of the boys who went out never came back, but were left on the battle fields of the South. Those were trying days for the school. "Mother" Stoddard sacrificed everything to keep the boys and girls in school -- there being little money for tuition. Thus the college was kept open and its future assured. She was held in highest honor by the college until her death, in June, 1913, at the age of 92 years. (from Iowa GenWeb).