ST. NICHOLAS
In Memory of Mary Mapes Dodge
Died August 21, 1905
Long before this number of St. Nicholas reaches its readers, the daily newspapers will have brought to them the sad news of the death of the beloved editor of this magazine. Mrs. Dodge had been suffering from a severe illness for several months, and it was hoped that the usual sojourn in her summer cottage at Onteora, New York, might restore her to health. But she steadily grew weaker until the end, which came peacefully on the morning of Monday, August 21st.
To all who knew and loved her it seems almost unbelievable that one who was so vital a part of the lives of those around her has vanished forever from our sight. Mrs. Dodge was always so triumphantly alive and joyous, so “in love with life and raptured with the world”; she had served so long and faithfully in her chosen field; she belonged so thoroughly to her great task, and held so high a place in both public and private esteem, that, as many a sorrowing friend has written, “We cannot imagine life without her.” The recognized leader in juvenile literature for almost a third of a century, she was universally honored by the children of America and even of the world—for from shore to shore of our country and across the widest seas her name was held in reverent affection by child-readers and their parents. Two generations of girls and boys have known her work and learned to love the noble, gifted, kindly nature which that work revealed. Children’s faces all over the land broke into smiles of joy at the mention of her name; parents all over the land, knowing well the debt which they and their children owed to her, said many a quiet God bless her!” in their hearts. Upon her desk today are loving, grateful letters from children whose fathers and mothers sent her just such letters in the cramped handwriting of their own childhood twenty-five years ago. “And we love you, dear Mrs. Dodge, as much as we love St. Nicholas!” was always the burden of these missives. Every copy of St. Nicholas made a personal friend for Mrs. Dodge of every girl and boy who read it, and everywhere she was honored and beloved as one who had done a great work in the world.
But it was not by any luck or good fortune that she accomplished that work; it was by patient, devoted, conscientious labor—by the exercise of noble gifts to a noble end. It was her mission to minister to the thoughts and interests and aspirations of childhood, and for this she was divinely fitted, From first to last—in her delight in simple things, in her simple faith,and in her eager impulses and quick sympa-Copyright, 1905, by The Century Co. All rights reserved.
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