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Elmira J. Dickinson
Elmira Jane Dickinson, daughter of Elijah and Mary A. Dickinson, began life in Christian county, Ky., January 9, 1831. Is of Welsh-English descent. Came with her parents to Walnut Grove in 1835. Was baptized July 6, 1845. Was educated in Walnut Grove Academy, taking the full academic course, but before diplomas were conferred. Taught, at different times, several years in the academy, also several years in the college, retiring finally from the work in June, 1870, In 1869 the Board of Trustees conferred on her the degree M. A.
She aided in the organization of the Christian Woman's Board of Missions at Cincinnati in October, 1874. Was, at the beginning of this work, made State President of the Board in Illinois. Three times she resigned this office and others were elected, but she was as often recalled to it as those others resigned it to enter other fields of labor, and she still has charge of that work. She was one of the deputation sent by the C. W. B. M. in January, 1887, to visit its mission on the Island of Jamaica. The trip occupied about three months.
In June, 1887, she was elected. one of the trustees of Eureka College, the first woman called to that position, which she continues to fill. She has long been an earnest worker in the temperance cause, and was three years W. C. T. U. President in the Ninth Congressional district, in which she resides, and gave that up only because she could not carry on that arduous work in addition to her missionary duties, to which she felt specially called.
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A friend and promoter of education always and everywhere, she has been especially interested in and thoroughly loyal to Eureka College, and has long wished that a record of its origin, work and experiences might be arranged in permanent form. Therefore she rejoices that this is now being done by the Alumni Association, and is glad to aid in the work.
God has blessed her with a busy, happy life. The evening of it she is spending in her quiet home in Eureka, doing whatsoever her hand finds to do.
Source:
A History of Eureka College, St. Louis: Christian Publishing
Company, 1894.
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