The Women-God Bless 'Em They Have Done Much to Make Grant County's History.

This page of the present issue, with its text so charmingly illustrated by the familiar faces that cluster about it like flowers in a garden serves the end of a welcome digression; and at the same time, makes a pleasant episode in the dull and somewhat weary work of the editor. Accordingly we have placed before our readers a bevy of lovely and gracious portraits-herein signalizing a chosen company, bright as the muses, whose praises bards might well rehearse in song-and, after transfusing and combining them in one harmonious assemblage of many varied types, we present the dainty whole as a testimony and a sufficient representation of that beautiful elegance and aesthetic grace which everywhere distinguishes the womanhood of our immediate section of the country. Other topics of interest and edification have been deftly handled in these columns and other fruitful themes will yet be discussed, let us hope to our mutual profit and delight: but no subject so commends itself to our tastes, none so enchains us by its spell and so awakens all our powers of admiration as does this present one-the women of Grant County-a toast and a sentiment for the very utmost panegyric-instinct, as it indubitably is, from every standpoint whether economic, or social, or moral, or religious, with the abundance, the riches, the satisfaction, and the poetry of life.


Admirable-incomparable-inimitable-our matchless women, we give you, if your needs must drink, to pledge in a beaker full of "the true, the blushful Hippocrene," that you may think of their, the young, The beautiful, the bright, And hear the music of her tongue Breathing its deep delight. And see again each glance, Each bright and dazzling beam, And feel your throbbing heart still dance, And live but in a dream.

Women, no matter what her clime or her race, makes tolerable the motley masquerade which we call human life; but it is here, in our own homes and our own hearthstones that she appeal to the deepest emotions of our imaginations and our hearts. Nowhere else in the entire state-perchance, nowhere else in the whole word-have women fallen more easily and naturally into their proper places in the wise ordering and intercommunication of their social and domestic relations, than they have in Grant County. It is not by means of showy accomplishments, or acquired graces of demeanor, or suave subservience to the demands of custom that they have done this, but through the agency of their brave and loyal dispositions and in the divine strength of a multitude of good and blessed qualities. Their annals are modest ones and not to be gaudily emblazoned on the obesquious pages of history. But in the memory of their high-minded courage, of their self-sacrificing generosity, of their sympathy with all joy and all suffering, of their deep and tender affections always the support and happiness of those nearest and dearest to them, the women of Grant county will have a monument beyond the stateliest marble, which neither time, nor the change of seasons, nor the innumerable years in their remorseless fight can ever alter or destroy.


Since the noble companions of the old pioneers who subdued the wilderness and made habitable the primeval hunting grounds of Kentucky-those frontier heeroines of early romance and Indian warfare whose unquailing fidelity in the face of peril and even death was ever united with infinite tenderness of heart-have been long dead and buried beside their stalwart spouses in the dust, but no in oblivion and forgetfulness, their lovely descendants, our mothers and wives and sister, inheriting much of their sturdy conscience and child-like trust in God, have advanced in moral and mental development far beyond the fondest dreams of those hardy and adventurous forbears. The improved methods of education and the broader culture now render accessible to everyone through the most modern schools, both public and private, have been especially advantageous to our women; and this advantage is manifested most clearly in the increased freedom and independence and enterprise which they exhibit whenever they are thrown upon their own resources by any chance or turn of fortune. To them largely more than to men is due the amelioration of our social condition, the gradual but sure enhancement, in Christian dignity and charm, of those niceties of conduct and personal amenities between the sexes which the dullest witted and stupidest churl among us can not fail to appreciate.

Keeping a sharp eye on the little unconsidered things, the trifling facts, and the smallest symptoms of social activity, they have neither neglected the more important interest, nor forgotten to achieve, by the exercise of all rich and womanly virtues, a distinct and peculiar individuality in the realm of their influence. It is this trait in them, this striking and exquisite individuality, so wrought and purified by the touch of the ideal, that we most highly prize and credit to them for a rare attraction, since individuality is a maker of spiritual as well as of physical beauty, and is in itself the primal quality of the one no less than of the other. This is not by the soft grace of youthful loveliness, nor by the sweet eloquence of speaking eyes, but in the affections and sympathies, the kindred and congenial emotions of love and pity, that woman is elevated far above ordinary life and sheds around her the chaste glory of her innocence, "Such as virtue ever wears When kind good- nature dresses her in smiles."


The traveler may drive through Grant County, miles upon miles, from border to border, and on every side he will behold scores of pleasant and cheerful and hospitable homes, with seldom a chance to encounter the gaunt specter of poverty and want in its grissly visitations, and nowhere finding open or unblushing vice to disgust and repel his sympathies - rural homes and happy firesides where love and patience abide in the person of the wife and mother, obedience and reverence in the hearts of her sons and daughters - modest mansions built up by honest and manly toil as a tribute to the worth of women - half-way, perchance, between hall and hut - that golden mean which all sages have prayed for, and which religion herself has called blest. That oasis in the desert, these havens of refuge from the storm that sooner or later sweep over us and beat piteously on our pathway through the world, we owe to the steadfastness and the purity of our women whose souls, as well as frames, are made of the finest clay, who, before the eyes of the uninitiated, pass for commonplace, because unpretentious in their talents and retiring in their sensibilities; because to their hands none so familiar as household ministries; and because to their hearts dearer are the tender humanities than bright to their imaginations the mercenary visions that encompass the gilded haunts of fashion and of wealth.

Herein is to be found the consummate flower of their excellence-the marker and the sign of their sweet and enduring sovereignty over the lives of men. From their delicate perception of manner, their quick, clear sense of the slight shades of demeanor both in their own and the opposite sex, and their sensitive observance of a due regard for every social propriety and obligation, women derive a criterion of rank by which they are far more strongly bound than are men by any of the tawdry distinctions which they are so prone to set up among themselves. Everywhere, on the farms, in the villages, and in the towns, throughout all the phases of the community, among its highest circles where culture is worn as the titular ornament of those in whom the intellect is polished to its most sparkling lustre, and likewise among its lower circles where the want of these things is painfully felt, it is woman's grace of wit and playful fancy, as well as her good heart and redeeming tenderness of nature, that have force to bind together the minds of men in her service and maintain at the summit of life, the peace and union of society.


Indeed, we may say with truth, having regard in the utterance to an elementary principle of which all are cognizant, that we must look to the fine character of our women; to the delicate faculties of their minds, in their subtlest workings, to the emotions of their hearts, in their gentlest pleasures; and to the enthusiasm of their souls, in their noblest passions, in their proudest sacrifices, in their holiest sensibilities, for the most potent factors that govern our civilization, shape its destinies, and illumine while they diversify its whole extent with a serene and perpetual changefulness of charm. This cultivation of the mind, the character, and the heart according to the laws of ethics and religion, is carried to a greater perfection among women, considered in its bearing upon the whole sex, than it is among men. It goes on from generation to generation; it is transmitted in families; it blossoms forth in unexpected places with fragrance and power; it characterizes, controls, and guards the fortunes of the race; and we do not hesitate to assert that, although it may mot be proper to regard it as an exclusive, yet it is certainly a hereditary, privilege and distinction belonging to the women of Grant County.

To them once more, now that years have given pause to romance and experience has taught its bitter lessons, we would swear our homage as gladly as ever we did in the day star of our youth. They are still our Queens Paramount-and we who are their subjects, come flocking of our own accord to lay ourselves in loyalty at their feet. They sit not on a throne, they wear no crowns on their heads, and hold no scepters in their hands, but they reign on earth by a right more divine than ever king possessed, and beneath their power has many a cit and soldier "Bowed his anointed head as low as death."


The foundation of their royalty is in the gratitude of men and the bulwark of their strength is in the hearts of their lovers, for only by their aid are such permitted to ascend to great ambitions and high duties. To slightly change the words of the poet:

"No Emperor in Rome's Imperial day Knew ever such a triumph as theirs is,
Though captive kings bore chains along his way.
Though tribute from the furthest isles was his With pageant and with praise;
But they-free men and free respect do grace Their triumph , and to their
untarnished hands
No Slaves bring tribute from the conquered lands,
But praise kneels clothed in love before their face."


In every department of our civilization the women of Kentucky have played an important part. They have been and are today the peers of the best of their race. In church and school, as mothers, sisters, and daughters they have won an honorable place in our history. In Grant County today three-fourths of all our school teachers are of the fair sex and right well have they performed the work that has fallen to their hands in this modern but strenuous life. The proportion of lady teachers in county has been gradually increasing from year to year, and it now seems to be only a question of time when this occupation in our midst will be entirely given up to our fair sisters and daughters. With all due respect for our male teachers the lady teachers are the best we have. They seem to be peculiarly adapted to that kind of work and get better results out of our "lads and lassies" than their stronger brothers in the calling. Much of the church work in Kentucky has fallen upon the shoulders of the good wives and beautiful girls of the county. There are dozens of church organizations in the county conducted exclusively by the fair sex. Whether it is because they are so much better naturally than the men or have a natural adaptation to this character of work we can hardly say. Kentucky women have been noted for their beauty for so long a time at home and abroad that it has become a matter of the highest praise to say of one that she is as beautiful as a Kentucky woman.

But after all it is not for her beauty but for her goodness of heart that the Kentucky woman is t be best known and best remembered. We have always maintained at home and abroad that the Grant County girl, be she maid or madam, represents the highest perfection of her race, and that opinion we still entertain and desire to emphasize in these columns. The faces presented to our readers on these pages are but a type of the Grant County woman. Every hill and valley in the county can produce faces just as sweet and lovely and the best of it all is that they are just as good as they are beautiful. If there is any good work to be done their hands are ever ready to undertake its accomplishments. Grant County would be a desert of a Sahara without her women, with them she is a Garden of Eden."

Portraits of Grant County Women




Miss Achor Franks



Miss Carrie Fling



Miss Clara Matthews



Emila Dickerson



Miss Nannie Arnold



Miss Pauline Johnson



Miss Sallie Franks



Mrs. Cora Webb Ashcraft



Mrs. E.B. Clark



Mrs.J.C.B. Conrad



Mrs. J.C. Brown



Mrs. J.T. Chipman



Mrs. Kate Conrad



Mrs. Kate Smith Needham



Miss Maud Sanders



Mrs. M.E. McClure



Mrs. O.S. Hogan



Daughter of J. P. Webb