of an entertainment for its benefit, and she arranged a Dickens Carnival, which brought in seven thousand dollars. In 1888 Mrs. Dyer was at the head of the. Board of Managers of the great fair held in Music Hall by which the sum of thirteen thousand dollars was raised in a single week for the benefit of The Home for Intemperate Women.
The Charity Club of Boston, which has become so yell known, was the outgrowth of this fair. The committee of fifty women who had worked so successfully* and harmoniously under Mrs. Dyer's guidance banded themselves together to raise money for any good object. Mrs. Dyer conceived the idea of starting a free hospital for respectable women without means in need of important surgical operations. A house at 38 Chester Park was bought, and a hospital started when the Club had not a cent in its treasury. How the owner was induced to take a mortgage for a sum less than he had asked for the property, leaving the Club an equity for nothing, how many ingenious devices were resorted to to furnish, to pay interest, taxes, and running expenses, only the Club members know; but the good work went on and prospered. The president, whose faith was so great, buoyed up the others.
In 1892 a hew hospital was completed at Parker Hill, between Brookline and Boston. The Legislature subsequently granted fifteen thousand dollars, which cleared off its in- debtedness. The Club now numbers nearly seven hundred members, and this hospital-stands a proud monument of their good work. Mrs. Dyer has been the president from the first. The badge of the Club is a circular pin surmounted with the head of the president in bronze.
Mrs. Dyer is the organizer and president of the Wintergreen Club, to which only women of fifty are eligible. It is named for the real wintergreen, which is green and glossy under the snow, retaining its youthful freshness, as good women do. Among its members are Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Maria H. Bray, Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods, and Mrs. Louis Prang.
Another little society which Mrs. Dyer initiated a few years ago is the "Take Heed," from the text, "Take heed that ye speak not evil of one another." She is also president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Upham's Corner, an office she has filled for seven years, being its second president, resigning at one time, and accepting the office again in 1899. She is a valued member and one of the board of directors of the Castilian Club, and a life member of the Bostonian Society. Among other societies and clubs with which she has been actively connected may be named the Moral Education Society, the National Prison Association, the Benefit Society for the University Education of Women, the Helping Hand Society, the Dorchester Woman's Club, and the Book Review Club of Dorchester, the last-named two being strictly literary clubs. It has been estimated that some- thing like a quarter of a million has been raised for charities through her inspiring leadership. Early inclined to literary work, for which the duties that came to her left little time, Mrs. Dyer has written, mainly for her clubs, in her scant leisure, many acceptable essays and poems. Her one great grief has been the loss of her husband, whose hearty support she had in all of her undertakings. Since his death, November 24, 1898, she has made her home with her son and his wife, on Columbia Road, Dorchester, having her own suite of rooms, where she still continues to dispense her bountiful hospitality.
Mrs. Livermore, in her characteristic, impulsive way, summing up Mrs. Dyer's amiable qualities, says, "I always think of her as always cheery, always charming, always harmonious, and altogether the most delightful woman of my acquaintance."
AUGUSTA WALKER STANLEY, of Newton, Mass., now (March, 1904) serving her third term as Regent of the Sarah Hall Chapter, Daughters of the Revolution, was born in New Portland, Me., August 20, 1848. Daughter of William and Mary (Witham) Walker, she is a descendant in the sixth generation of Captain Solomon Walker, of Berwick and Woolwich, Me., an officer in
