Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June | Page 4

lecturer in other women's schools of the first rank.
Nor did Jenny June pattern her work according to the advice or after the example of any one man or woman. There was no example by which she could be guided. Woman was a new factor in journalism, and Jenny June was a new woman, a new creation, if I may so speak, fashioned after the type of woman in the beginning, when God created man and woman in His own image. I cannot too fully emphasize the fact that she was a new and original personality in journalism. No one understood this better than her husband. In matters of detail his counsel was of value to her, but the spirit and character of her work were her own; and happily for her and for womankind she could never be diverted from her chosen path. This, indeed, was one chief secret of her success. She was unalterably true to her divine womanly ideals of woman's nature, place in society and redemptive work. I say redemptive work, for it was one of her deepest convictions that woman's function, was to be the saving salt of all life. Sorosis was founded upon this idea;--not a literary club merely or mainly; not a political, social or religious club; but one founded on womanhood, on the divine nature of women of every class and degree.
Jenny June's recognition of this vital truth brought her into sympathy with a world-wide movement. The new woman is no monstrosity, no sporadic creature born of intellectual fermentation and unrest, but the rise and development of a better, nobler type of womanhood the world over. Jenny June's eminent distinction was that she was a leader in this movement. It made her what her husband once said in my hearing: "a wonderful woman." Of course there was the capacity for bursts of feeling on occasion, which those who knew her best seldom cared to provoke. "I am not an amiable woman," she once said to the writer. Radiant as she was, there was a volcanic force in her nature which could be terrific against folly, frivolity and wrong.
Thousands of gifted women are now making themselves heard in poetry, dissertation, fiction and journalism because Jenny June opened the path for them. Womanhood was her watchword, and God, duty, faith and hope the springs of her life. It may surprise even those who knew her well to learn that her physical timidity was great, and at times painful. But her moral and intellectual courage impelled her at times almost to the verge of audacity, and was held under restraint only by conscience and good sense. Humor and wit can hardly be said to have been marked traits in her mentality. There was something delphic and oracular often in her familiar conversation. Sentimentalism had no place in her nature, her reading or literary work. A soul full of healthy and noble sentiment left no room for sentimentalism.
Was Jenny June a genius? Well, if a boundless capacity for good original work is genius, then she was a genius. Magnanimity was a marked trait in her character. Envy or jealousy of the gifts of another were foreign to her. Love of nature, and especially of fine trees, was one of her most noticeable characteristics. "There will be trees in my heaven," she once said to the writer. But works of art, of the chisel, the brush, the pencil and the loom were her delight. She loved the city, its crowding humanity, its stores and its galleries. She loved London even more than New York. Continental travel was her chief pleasure and diversion. A long period of physical suffering, caused by an accident, cast a cloud over the last years of my sister's honorable life. She sought relief from pain and weakness, at Ambleside in Derbyshire, England, and at a celebrated cure in Switzerland, but was only partially successful. The final release came on December 23, 1901, and her remains were laid by the side of her husband in the cemetery at Lakewood, New Jersey.
Noble Jenny June! Shall we ever see her like again!

Sorosis-Press Club Memorial Meeting
A memorial meeting, called by Sorosis jointly with the Woman's Press Club, was held at the Waldorf-Astoria on January 6, 1902, a fortnight after the death of Mrs. Croly. It was attended not alone by the members of these two clubs but also by representatives from every woman's club in New York and the vicinity. Letters from many clubs belonging to the General Federation were read, and from the secretary's report of the meeting have been gathered the following tributes of notable clubwomen to the beloved founder of both clubs.

Address by Dimies T.S. Denison, President of Sorosis
We have met this afternoon to pay a loving tribute to one of the departed of Sorosis,