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Part of the American
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Mrs. Samuel Johnston Wright
Mrs. Samuel Johnston Wright (Ione Hervey
Wright) is descended, through her maternal grandmother, from a
long line of Anglican clergymen, Lord Bishop Hervey of the Court
of Henry VIII being the first, descendants of whom coming to
America and Virginia in the early days of our country, became
Presbyterian ministers.
Mrs. Wright, a woman of high ideals and one who works zealously
for the cause not for self-aggrandizement, came to Paris, Texas,
in 1883 from Leavenworth, Kansas, as the young bride of Captain
S. J. Wright, a member of one of the most prominent and
influential families of Lamar and Red River Counties, and by her
gracious manner and charming personality won friends readily,
while her great administrative ability was early recognized. She
was elected president of the first Chautauqua Circle organized
in Paris, and continued in office for four years till graduating
from this Circle in 1894.
When the Ladies Auxiliary of the Young Women's Christian
Association was founded Mrs. Wright was unanimously made
president. She was a charter member of the Lotus Club and has
been elected to the highest offices within the gift of this
club. In 1903, she was the Lotus president and when the City
Federation was formed was chosen president, and by her
unfailingly good spirit and agreeable manner of impressing her
views, soon made this organization effective for the good of her
town. She is now an honorary member of the Twentieth Century
Club and an active member of the Quill Club, where only original
manuscripts are read and accepted. Not only had Mrs. Wright's
home town recognized and appreciated her literary and executive
ability, but she has been appointed by several of the state
presidents on various important committees, as well as elected
to different offices of the State Federation.
While a member of the Art Committee during Mrs. Pennybacker's
presidency, she gave public art lectures at the different ward
schools and aroused great interest in the pictures of the
Traveling Art Gallery. As chairman of the Art Committee under
Mrs. E. P. Turner she visited by invitation, the adjoining
towns, giving lectures on art and creating a widespread interest
in the pictures sent out by the Federation. Mrs. Wright gave
great impetus to the work of the third district as its president
during Mrs. Cone Johnson's administration, and originated in her
district the Educational Loan Fund which has so materially aided
ambitious young girls. She did effective work as first
vice-president with Mrs. Dibrell as president Mrs. Wright's
varied club experience makes her a strong and most accept-able
state president, who keeps in close touch with all the work and
advances all good movements. Her address, always dignified and
imposing; is courteous; though reserved she is approachable; she
is found always in sympathy with every phase of the work which
tends to the education, elevation and greater happiness of all
mankind.
The impetus given all branches of Federation endeavor during her
administration has been evidenced by the large attendance at the
district meetings, the excellent reports rendered and the number
of new clubs applying for admittance. Mrs. Wright was the first
state president to give special attention to the moral and
physical welfare of children. In her open letter to club women
announcing her candidacy she said:
'This is the century of the child, and thinking, active women
are making this more true each succeeding year. What we club
women have accomplished along educational lines needs no
reviewing here; our work is fostering manual and industrial
training in the public schools, and for the founding of free
kindergartens throughout the state; our aid in the passage of
the Juvenile Court Bill, and in the establishment of an
Industrial Training School for Incorrigibles, all of these
demonstrate our lines of action favoring the mental, manual and
spiritual training of the child. Our fine record made in the
cause of parks and school grounds proves our desire for the
physical welfare of the child. But we do more. Therefore, club
women of Texas, while my plan for the direction of our efforts
during the next administration, would, of course, include the
accomplishment of any work outlined by preceding administrations
and as yet uncompleted, it would also include special endeavor
as is the visible outgrowth of what has already been undertaken
and which is essential to the highest ideals of our
organization, to my mind this directs us to the spread of the
gospel of moral and physical training for the child."
At the district meetings all her addresses were on the subject
Present Purposes of the Texas Federation," varying it as the
needs of each seemed to require, but always bringing out the
thought that her administration stands not only for the perfect
and symmetrical education of the child, which means development
of brain, hand and heart, but also for social development
through the social centre movement, which constitutes the one
decidedly new Federation issue for 1909- 191 1. This movement
proposes that the schoolhouse, especially in rural districts, be
used as a social centre, becoming the club house, the library,
the forum of the community, thus assembling together many of
those otherwise isolated, or with no recreate horizon.
Mrs. Wright's administration will be remembered as the one
which, through' its influence was successful in the passing of
an adequate "Child Labor Law for Texas. Mrs. Wright declares,
however, that child idleness is as great a menace to
civilization as is Child Labor, and the Federation is now
working toward an optional compulsory educational law, the same
embodying the industrial feature, as under present conditions in
Texas is the only solution of the question.
Her administration has endorsed the Willacy Bill introduced into
the senate at the recent legislature, which requires that
convicts' dependent families be provided for out of the proceeds
of their labor.
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.
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