Her maiden name was MrGary. Her father, a planter. amassed a fortune in the East India trade, he died just before the Civil War, and his family were stripped of the large fortune left them through the mismanagement of a relative and by the war. The mother took her three little daughters to Providence, R. I., to educate them. Emily was a precocious child, showing aptitude for anything in the line of music, art and language. She finished the high-school course in Providence, studied with private tutors, and ended with a course in the Cooper Institute School of Design in New York City. With art she studied medicine, but decided not to attempt to practice in that held. In her nineteenth year she taught in southern schools, acting as instructor in painting, drawing, elocution, botany, French and Latin for seven years in various institutions. While teaching in Louisville, Ky., she read a paper on "Art Education" before a gathering of five-hundred teachers, which resulted in the establishment of a normal art-school in that city, of which she was principal. Ill-health compelled her to go north, ant) she returned to Providence, where she opened a studio. There, in 1882, she became the wife of Jean Paul Selinger. the artist. From 1882 to 1885 they traveled in Europe, studying in Italy, and while abroad Mrs. Selinger corresponded for the "Boston Transcript." She became a student of flower-painting, and earned the title "Emily Selinger, the Rose Painter." Returning to the United States. Mr. and Mrs. Selinger settled in Boston. Mass., where they now live. Her work has been remarkably popular, and her rose pictures are found in every notable collection in the country. She is a successful artist and author, and a member of the New England Women's Press Association.
SERRANO, Mme. Emelia Benic, opera singer, was born in Vienna, Austria- Hungary. Her maiden name was Benic. Her father died when she was seven years old. Her mother recognized her musical talent and placed her under the tuition of Prof. Simm, of the Conservatory of Prague.
.jpg)
EMELIA BENIC SERRANO.
She finished the course in singing there and then took a course with Lewy Richard in Vienna She then went to Italy to study the Italian language with Bona. She made her debut in Vienna, in concert,
with Prof. Richard, and won quick recognition. Berger, the German impresario, engaged her to sing in opera, and in Kiev she made her operatic début, singing in Russian the role of Marguerite in
Gounod's "Faust," and the soprano part in Glinka's " Life for the Czar." In Moscow she sang in "Faust" with brilliant success, which she repeated in St. Petersburg and Odessa. She then returned to Vienna and became prima donna of the German Opera Company in the Ring Theater. Later she sang in Milan, Turin, Lesce, Florence, Genoa, Venice, Cagliari, Catania, Berganio and other Italian cities. She next made a successful tour in South America. She revisited Italy, and then went to Central America. In Bogota, Colombia, she founded the Conservatory of St. Cecelia. In Caracas, Venezuela, she gave a series of concerts with Carlos A. Serrano, the pianist, and Ramon G. Osorio, the violinist. The troupe visited other cities and were successful. The climate in that country did not agree with her. and she came to the United States with Sefior Serrano, to whom she was married 3rd May, 1884, in Caracas. She is now living in New York
City, where she is giving instruction in vocal music.
SEVERANCE, Mrs. Caroline Maria Seymour, reformer, born in Canandaigua, N. Y., 12th January, 1820. She is the oldest daughter of a family of five. Her father, Orson Seymour, was of an old Connecticut family, settled in Hartford. His brothers, Hon. H. R. and James S.. were bankers, like himself, one in Buffalo, N. Y., and the other in Auburn, N. Y. Her mother's family was Clarke, of Cayuga, N. Y.. descended on the father's side from a Connecticut family of that name, and on the mother's from an old Knickerbocker family of New York City. After her father's death in Canandaigua, in 1825, the mother returned to her father's ample country-home, which thereafter sheltered for some years five generations. Under the advice of the guardians, the mother returned later, for a year or more, with her children to Canandaigua, they being guests for most of that time of the Hon. J. C. Spencer. Caroline began her school-life in the Upham Female Seminary, the famous school of that vicinity. Her mother lived later in Auburn, N. Y., and Caroline was for a few years a pupil in the boarding-school of Miss Almira Bennett, Owasco Lake, N. Y. Next she was for three years in the boarding-school of Mrs. Ricord and Miss Charlotte C. Thurston, in Geneva, N. Y., where she was "at the front" in her general studies,
in French and in English composition, and was valedictorian of her class, in 1836. From Geneva she returned to her mother in Auburn, and was for a time a pupil, and a teacher in a small way, in the
Auburn Female Seminary. There her invalid mother made the acquaintance of Rev. Luther Halsey, then professor in the Theological Seminary of the place, and was persuaded by his wife to
accompany them to their home on the Ohio, below Pittsburgh, Pa., where she had opened a boarding-school for girls, in which Caroline made a second essay at teaching, for which her natural shyness
somewhat unfitted her. There her future husband, J. C. Severance, a banker of Cleveland, Ohio, but of New England birth, secured from her a promise of marriage. They were married in Auburn, N.Y., 27th August, 1840, and commenced housekeeping at once in Cleveland. They remained there until 1855, when they removed to Boston,
