“ Though retiring by nature and disposition, she is fearless and vigorous in action when occasion calls and the right demands it. Her life-work, by her own choice, has been the faithful and efficient discharge of every duty in her home and social relations. She is a true out-growth and exemplification of the greatness of American women, to whose devotion to duty and rich display of intellect and truth in domestic relations is owing a great proportion of the might of the Nation in the past and present, and its hope for the time to come. ”

“ Before she was ten years old she made her first public effort in a poem, which was published. At the age of twelve years she wrote for Morris and Willis a poem which they published in the "Home Journal." Her father judiciously, so far as possible, repressed all precocious display, but the passion was her master, and while a pupil in the common schools of western New York, and in the academy in Rushford, N. Y., she wrote and published many poems under the pen-name of "Winnie Woodbine." ”