Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June | Page 4

Nor did it consist in
inherited social rank or wealth; her earnings by her pen were large, but
her patrimony was small. It should have been said before, that she
received the degree of Doctor of Literature from Rutgers Women's
College, and was appointed to a new chair of Journalism and Literature
in that institution. She was also a 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