Sunshine for Women WHM 2002, ToC | Home

from Eminent women of the age being narratives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present generation. By James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, Prof. James M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, etc. Richly illustrated with fourteen steel engravings. (ix, 11-628 p. 14 port. (incl. front.) 23 cm) [Hartford, Conn.: S. M. Betts & Company; Chicago. Ill.: Gibbs & Nichols; [etc., etc.], 1868] pp. 379 - 382

I cannot do better than to give the reader, what, in her easy, playful way, she writes in a letter to me of herself. I wrote to her asking for the facts of her life, telling her there was no escape, that nolens volens she was to be sketched, and it rested with her, whether is should be based wholly on such an objective view, such as I could get in being en rapport with herself. She choose the latter, as the least of two evils, and frankly tells me what she knows of herself.

"Dear Friend,

      Isn't this an interesting dilemma to find one's self in? to be exhibited whether we will or no! One who has arrived at years of discretion, surely, in our free land, to have no change of choice, whether to remain incog., or be set on high for all the daws to peck at! 'But to this it seems we have come at last,' and, in my extremity, if I may choose nothing else, I surely shall snatch at the chance to say by whom this most undesirable service shall be performed, and I gladly submit to you.'

      "I have done so little to justify my years, that I might shrink from such a sketch as you propose, with better reason than could influence many of our sex. But lest you should think my humility and affection, I frankly avow that I was born in Canandaigua, N. Y., in January, 1820, if you consider date and birth place important to the sketch, of neither "poor or pious parents," although cultivated, conscientious persons. My father's name was Orson Seymour, a banker, and my mother's name was Caroline M. Clark. I was married in 1840, at Auburn, N. Y., to T. C. Severance, a banker of Cleveland, Ohio. Neither the world nor my historian would have any particular interest in what I said, or did, after that remarkable event of January 20th, and the good sense of choosing such a beautiful portion of the earth's surface for a birthplace, until the mother of five children, with little experience in life, and less in society, having devote myself to home and books, I was chosen, in 1853, to read before the Mercantile Library Association, the first lecture ever delivered by a woman, in Cleveland, Ohio, where I had resides since marriage. I had been already identified with the Woman's Rights movement, having attended conventions in Indiana, Ohio, and New York; and this accounts for my invitation on this occasion. I cannot tell you how long I hesitated to accept this invitation; the more I plead my unfitness, the more I was pressed with a sense of my duty, and at last I wrote the most exhaustive essay I could on the subject, to make sure, for once, that my city should have all that could be said on the subject. An immense audience listened, through an hour and three quarters, with becoming silence and respect. This lecture I repeated several times, in different parts of the state. After that, the Woman's Rights Association asked me to prepare a tract for their circulation. Later I was appointed to present a memorial to the Legislature, asking suffrage and such amendments to the State laws of Ohio as should place a woman on civil equality with man. In 1855 we came to Massachusetts, the home of my heart always, and here I have done nothing, deserving the punishment of public exposure, that I now remember against myself, until, as one of the lecture committee of the Fraternity Association, it became my duty to assist in securing lectures for the course. We invited Mrs. Stanton, but, she failing us at the last moment, I was not able to resist the entreaties of the committee, and the obligation I felt myself under, to make good her place, so far as in me lay. That was, I believe, the first lecture ever delivered in Boston before a Lyceum Association by a woman. I will not tell you how prosy and dull I fear it was, but I now it was earnest, and well considered, and dear Mrs. Follen's and Miss Peabody's beaming eyes, kept me in heart all through, as they glowed with interest before me from below the platform of Tremont Temple Hall. Since then, from want of health and voice, I have not spoken much in public, though I have given soul service, in many directions, standing as corresponding secretary for the Anti-slavery Society, one of the board of managers to the New England Female Medical College, and reading a course of private lectures on practical ethics, before Dio Lewis's school of girls. These lectures cover the relations of the young woman to the school, the State, and the home, and her own complete development. As a mother, I am happy to say that my sons and daughters have never disgraced me, and I see no reason to believe, ever will disgrace, my name, or bring in question, my influence over them or my fidelity to them. Pure in heart, noble in all their tastes and tendencies, and my best legacy to it. Here you have me, my friend, in a nutshell. Not multum in parvo, it must be confessed.

"Yours, sincerely,
C. M. S. "

Mrs. Severance now resides in West Newton, Massachusetts, where she is living a quiet life, in a beautiful home. She is using her pen in a way she hopes will some day prove a means of broader influence. In manners and appearance, Mrs. Severance is very attractive. She has a handsome face and figure, dignified carriage, and fine conversational powers. She is an amiable, conscientious woman, faithful alike in her private and public duties.

For More Information

      Caroline Severance by Celeste DeRoche

      about.com

Return to Women's History Month 2002 Table of Contents

e-mail sunshine@pinn.net