|
Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Ella Hoover Thacher 1850 ~ 1939
Mrs. Ella Hoover Thacher is of old
Holland and English descent. She taught school when she was
fifteen and one-half years old; was prepared for college, but
too young to enter; married at 17; began her temperance work
when only five years old; joined church at twelve years of age;
taught a Sunday school class of three little children when
eleven years of age; moved to Florence, New Jersey, after her
marriage and with the help of her husband, organized a Sunday
school there, from which a church grew, with an attendance of
more than 600 people. They organized settlement work, cooking,
sewing classes, boys' and girls' clubs, evangelistic work and
helpers in work with boys in library; began Woman's Christian
Temperance Union work with children of the town and a Woman's
Christian Temperance Union followed; was elected county
president of Burlington County Woman's Christian Temperance
Union in 1893; made national superintendent of soldiers' and
sailors' work; made world's superintendent of soldiers' and
sailors' work; has traveled all over the United States and many
foreign countries in interest of this department; visited every
National Soldiers' Home and many State Homes; organized
Christian Temperance Unions. Over 10,000 soldiers and sailors in
forts, barracks, navy yards and on the large battle-ships and
cruisers have pledged against strong drink through her
influence; many of these are filling places of trust in the
business world today. Some of them are preaching the Gospel of
Christ
Mrs. Thacher has been sent by the World's Woman's Christian
Temperance Union to Mexico where President Diaz became
interested in the work; also sent to Cuba and the Bahama
Islands. Visiting government reservations while the canteen was
in them, she learned of the dreadful havoc it was making and
traveled extensively telling the people of the country of its
dreadful wickedness; also arousing her own organization which,
with other temperance societies and the Christian people of the
nation, helped in the abolishing of the curse.
For twenty-five years she was treasurer of an associational
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society; is connected with the
National Congress of Mothers and is on many local boards of
philanthropic societies. For years she was the only woman on the
executive board of the New Jersey State Red Cross Society,
having been instrumental in its organization.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
|