Kansas Women in Literature | Page 3

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KANSAS WOMEN
IN
LITERATURE
BY
NETTIE GARMER BARKER

TO MY NEAREST AND DEAREST-- MY SILENT PARTNERS--
MY HUSBAND AND MY MOTHER.

KANSAS WOMEN IN LITERATURE.
``We are proud of Kansas, the beautiful queen, And proud are we of her
fields of corn; But a nobler pride than these I ween, Is our pride in her
children, Kansas born!''
--Ellen P. Allerton--

--Or adopted. In this galaxy of bright women, the State has a noble
pride for every name, be its owner Kansas born or adopted, is a
mightier force for good than its ``walls of corn.''

EFFIE GRAHAM.
The last place one would expect to find romance is in arithmetic and
yet--Miss Effie Graham, the head of the Department of Mathematics in
the Topeka High School, has found it there and better still, in her
lecture ``Living Arithmetic'' she has shown others the way to find it
there. Miss Graham is one of the most talented women of the state.
Ex-Gov. Hoch has called her ``one of the most gifted women in the
state noted for its brilliant women. Her heart and life are as pure as her
mind is bright.''
She was born and reared in Ohio, the daughter of a family of Ohio
pioneers, a descendant of a Revolutionary soldier and also, of a warrior
of 1812. As a student of the Ohio Northern University and later as a
post-graduate worker at the University of California, Chicago
University, and Harvard Summer School, she has as she says,
``graduated sometimes and has a degree but never `finished' her
education.''
Desiring to get the school out into the world as well as the world back
to the school, she has spoken and written on ``Moving Into The King
Row,'' ``Other Peoples' Children,'' ``Spirit of the Younger Generation,''
``Vine Versus Oak,'' and ``The Larger Service.''
``Pictures Eight Hundred Children Selected,'' ``Speaking of
Automobiles,'' ``The Unusual Thing,'' ``The High Cost of Learning,''
and ``Wanted--A Funeral of Algebraic Phraseology;'' also, some verse,
``The Twentieth Regiment Knight'' and ``Back to God's Country'' are
magazine work that never came back. School Science & Mathematics,
a magazine to which she contributes and of which she is an associate
editor, gives hers as the only woman's name on its staff of fifty editors.

Her book, ``The Passin' On Party,'' raises the author to the rank of a
classic. To quote a critic: it is ``a little like `Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage
Patch,' a little like `Uncle Tom's Cabin,' but not just like either of them.
She reaches right down into human breasts and grips the heart strings.''
It is the busy people who find time to do things and the mother-heart of
Miss Graham finds expression in her household in West Lawn, a
suburb of Topeka. Among the members of her family are a niece and
nephew whose High School and College education she directs.

ESTHER M. CLARK.
Every Kansan, homesick in a foreign land, knows the call of Kansas
and every Kansan book lover knows Esther Clark's ``Call of Kansas.''
``Sweeter to me than the salt sea spray, the fragrance of summer rains:
Nearer my heart than these mighty hills are the wind-swept Kansas
plains: Dearer the sight of a shy, wild rose by the roadside's dusty way
Than all the splendor of poppy-fields ablaze in the sun of May.
Gay as the bold poinsetta is, and the burden of pepper trees, The
sunflower, tawny and gold and brown, is richer, to me, than these. And
rising ever above the song of the hoarse, insistent sea, The voice of the
prairie, calling, calling me.
Miss Clark was born in Neosho Co., Kansas, about twelve miles
southeast of Chanute, on a farm. At seven years of age, the family
moved to Chanute and her school days were spent at the old Pioneer
Building, where her mother went to school before her. In 1894, she
graduated here, later entering the University of Kansas for work in
English.
In 1906, ``Verses by a Commonplace Person'' was published. ``The
Call of Kansas and Other Verse'' came out in 1909. This volume
contained ``My Dear'' and ``Good Night'' which were set to music, and
``Rose O' My Heart.''

``Rose o' my heart, to-day I send A rose or two, You love roses, Rose