Mrs. Barr’s life has been an eventful one, broken in upon by sorrow, bereavement and hardship, and she has risen superior to her trials and made her way through difficulties in a manner which is possible only to an individual of the strongest character.
Amelia E. Huddleston was born at Ulverstone, in the northwest of England, in 1832. She early became a thorough student, her studies being directed by her father, who was an eloquent and learned preacher. When she was seventeen, she went to a celebrated school in Scotland; but her education was principally derived from the reading of books to her father.
When about eighteen she was married to Robert Barr, and soon after came to America, traveling in the West and South. They were in New Orleans in 1856 and were driven out by the yellow fever, and settled in Austin, Texas, where Mr. Barr received an appointment in the comptroller’s office. Removing to Galveston after the Civil War, Mr. Barr and his four sons died in 1876 of yellow fever. As soon as she could safely do so, Mrs. Barr took her three daughters to New York, where she obtained an appointment to assist in the education of the three sons of a prominent merchant. When she had prepared these boys for college, she looked about for other means of livelihood, and, by the assistance of Henry Ward Beecher and Doctor Lyman Abbott, she was enabled to get some contributions accepted by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, for whose periodicals she wrote for a number of years. An accident which happened to her in 1884 changed her life and conferred upon the world a very great benefit. She was confined to her chair for a considerable time, and, being compelled to abandon her usual methods of work, she wrote her first novel, “Jan Vedder’s Wife.” It was instantly successful, running through many editions, and has been translated into one or two European languages. Since that time she has published numerous stories. One of the most successful was “Friend Olivia,” a study of Quaker character which recalls the closing years of the Commonwealth in England, and which her girlhood’s home at Ulverstone, the scene of the rise of Quakerism, gave her special advantages in preparing. It is an unusually powerful story; and the pictures of Cromwell and George Fox are not only refreshingly new and bright but remarkably just and appreciative. Some of her other stories are “Feet of Clay,” the scene of which is laid on the Isle of Man; “The Bow of Orange Ribbon,” a study of Dutch life in New York; “Remember the Alamo,” recalling the revolt of Texas; “She Loved a Sailor,” which deals with sea life and which draws its scenes from the days of slavery; “The Last of the MacAllisters;” “A Sister of Esau;” and “A Rose of a Hundred Leaves.” Only a slight study of Mrs. Barr’s books is necessary to show the wide range of her sympathies, her quick and vivid imagination, and her wonderful literary power; and her career has been an admirable illustration of the power of some women to win success even under the stress of sorrow, disaster and bereavement.
LITTLE JAN’S TRIUMPH.[¹]
(FROM [♦]“JAN VEDDER’s WIFE.”)
[¹] Copyright, Dodd, Mead & Co.
[♦] ‘JANE’ replaced with ‘JAN’
S she approached her house, she saw a crowd of boys, and little Jan walking proudly in front of them. One was playing “Miss Flora McDonald’s Reel” on a violin, and the gay strains were accompanied by finger-snapping, whistling, and occasional shouts. “There is no quiet to be found anywhere, this morning,” thought Margaret, but her curiosity was aroused, and she went towards the children. They saw her coming, and with an accession of clamor hastened to meet her. Little Jan carried a faded, battered wreath of unrecognizable materials, and he walked as proudly as Pompey may have walked in a Roman triumph. When Margaret saw it, she knew well what had happened, and she opened her arms, and held the boy to her heart, and kissed him over and over, and cried out, “Oh, my brave little Jan, brave little Jan! How did it happen then? Thou tell me quick.”