of Bohemia," "Valerie Aylmar," "Morton House," "Heart of Steel," "Cast for Fortune," and "A Little Maid of Arcady." Mrs. Tiernan has received a Laetare medal from Notre Dame University, Indiana.
Miss Grace Charlotte Mary Regina Strachan, educator, social worker and writer, is the daughter of Thomas F. Strachan, a Scotch Presbyterian, but entered the Catholic church, of which her mother was a devoted member. She was educated in Buffalo, New York, first, at Saint Bridget's and later at the Buffalo State Normal School and she has taken several New York University extension courses. Since 1900 she has been superintendent of the public schools of New York, and is well known for her philanthropic work in the Young Women's Catholic Association of Brooklyn, where she has taught free classes. Miss Strachan has also been most active in promoting the cause of equal pay for equal work and is interested in all Catholic charities. She has contributed several articles and stories to the Delineator and has traveled in this country and abroad, having been granted an audience with Pope Pius X. She is president of the Interborough Association of Women Teachers and a member of many other organizations.
Georginia Pell Curtis was born in New York City, February 19, 1859, and although of Protestant parentage and educated at a Protestant school she was afterwards converted to the Roman Catholic Church, and has since been a constant and brilliant contributor to all the publications devoted to the interests of that church. Her writings have appeared in the Ave Maria, the Catholic World, the Messenger, the Magnificat, the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Donahoe's, the Rosary, and the Pilgrim. She is also the editor of "Some Roads to Rome in America," and the "American Catholic Who's Who." She comes justly by her ready, facile mental qualities and her ability for logical work, coming from distinguished ancestry along Colonial and Dutch lines; on the maternal side Miss Curtis is a granddaughter of Thomas Hill, known on the stage as Thomas Hillson, an English actor of the old Park Theatre, New York, who numbered among his intimate friends, Junius Brutus Booth, John William Wallack, and Washington Irving. Other lineal ancestors of whom Miss Curtis is justly proud were Peter Vandewaker, keeper of the city gate at the foot of Wall Street, New York, in the eighteenth century, and Jacobus Vandewaker, mayor of New Amsterdam, in 1673.
Mrs. Edwin F. Abell, daughter of the late Frank Laurenson, a noted merchant of Baltimore. She married the late Edwin F. Abell, son of Arunah S. Abell, founder of the Baltimore Sun. Mr. Abell, succeeded his father as editor of the Sun, and under this guidance it remained as it had always been one of the most efficient and influential journals in the United States, and in its columns all affairs of interest and benefit to the Catholic Church in America have always been given just and dignified treatment.
Madam Marie Louise Alband, was born at Chambly, near Montreal, in 1852, and was the daughter of Joseph Lajeunesse, a musician. Musical ability was early evidenced in the daughter and at the age of fifteen she had finished her education at the Sacred Heart Convent in Albany, New York, and had become organist at the Church of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Later she studied in Paris and Milan under distinguished musicians, eventually making her debut in Messina, in 1870. Her success, which established her as a famous singer,
