Representative women of New England/Adelaide A. H. Calkins
ADELAIDE A. HOSMER CALKINS, of Springfield, Mass., was born in West Boylston, Worcester County, where her paternal ancestors settled before the Revolution. She is the daughter of the late Ebenezer Mason Hosmer and Mary Cheney, his wife, and is of pure English stock. She is descended from the colonial family of James Hosmer, who came to America from Hawkhurst, England, in 1635, and settled in Concord, Mass.
Mrs. Calkins acquired her education in the schools of her native town, Wilbraham Academy, and Charlestown Female Seminary, the last named being a flourishing institution in its time, conducted by Miss Martha Whiting, who stood high among the educators of the State. In 1855 she (Adelaide A. Hosmer) married Dr. Marshall Calkins, and in 1860 they took up their residence in Springfield. Of this union there is one child, Dr. Cheney Hosmer Calkins, an oculist, residing in Springfield.
In 1865 the Home for Friendless Women and Children was organized. Mrs. Calkins became a manager in 1867, and for the ten succeeding years was active in its work, serving on the Children's Committee.
In 1877 she was appointed by Governor Rice one of an advisory board of three women to the State Board of Charities, and was its chairman, its duties being to inspect quarterly the Tewskbury almshouse and the State primary and reform schools, and report upon the same. The following year the advisory board was abolished, and its members appointed as trustees of the same institutions, where direct power rather than advisory could be exercised. Heretofore the trustees governing State institutions, except those for women only, were composed entirely of men.
Mrs. Calkins being appointed on the trustee board of the State primary and reform schools, the State primary at once engaged her most careful attention. This congregate institution, with its system of herding hundreds of children together with the fewest possible chances for the right development of mind and body, had appealed to Mrs. Calkins while a member of the advisory board as a subject for reform. In her now position she interested her associate trustees, the State Board of Charities, and the local press in the matter. As a result the management was radically changed, and by act of Legislature, 1879-80, the young wards of the State between four and ten years of age might be placed at board in suitable families.
Mrs. Calkins declined reappointment as a trustee in July, 1880, and accepted appointment on a newly created board of auxiliary visitors to the State Board of Charities, consisting of five women. The object of the organization was to secure voluntary women visitors in different sections of the State to visit regularly the dependent and delinquent children placed in families. More than fifty women engaged in the work. Up to this time all official visitors of State children were men. Mrs. Calkins also accepted at this time the responsibility of beginning the work of placing young children at board in Western Massachusetts and visiting them quarterly. In this voluntary work she continued until the summer of 1883, when the success and growth of the work necessitated the entire time of a supervising visitor, and, a salaried officer being appointed, Mrs. Calkins retired.
In 1878 Mrs. Calkins took up the work of the Union Relief Association, then established in Springfield for the purpose of preventing pauperism by helping the poor to help themselves, and was among its first corps of visitors. Its first notable work was the investigation of the condition of the city almshouse, and as a result she was soon after included in a committee to go before the Legislature to urge a change in the law regarding children in almshouses, so that no young child could be placed in an almshouse without its mother. Out of this successful movement grew the present Hampden County Children's Aid Society.
In 1883 a committee of visitors, with Mrs. Calkins as chairman, was appointed to organize a day nursery and raise funds for its sup- port. To this nursery in 1885 were successively added a labor bureau and an industrial laundry. These several departments were soon successfully united in a building of their own under the name of the Industrial House Charities. This institution has continued its help- ful work in caring for infants, teaching laundr3nng, and providing places for days' work for destitute widows and deserted wives with young children and other j)r)or women.
In 1879 Mrs. Calkins was appointed by Mayor Powers one of the first board of trustees of the City Hospital, and more especially for its reorganization, as up to that time it had no medical staff or systematic hospital management. Mrs. Calkins is still a member of the corporation of the SpringfieUl Hospital, an outgrowth of the former institution.
In 1883 Mrs. Calkins resigned from all charity boards except that of the day nursery, and accompanied her husband and son to Europe for a period of rest, study, and recreation. She improved this opportunity to visit charitable institutions and schools in London and Vienna, observing their methods and management.
In 1886 Mrs. Calkins was elected a member of the school committee of Springfield. This position she held for twelve years, helping to inaugurate the modern and progressive methods that have made Springfield schools prominent in the State and country. Cooking, kindergartens, suitable lunches at minimum cost for high school scholars, were among the especial objects of her attention, also the proper sanitary conditions of the school-rooms for growing children, including hygienic seats and desks, proper arrangement of light, cleanliness, and school architecture.
In 1891 the organization of the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution came to the notice of Mrs. Calkins through a newspaper item. She at once sought definite information concerning the society, and in a few months became a member. On December 17 of the same year she was appointed chapter regent for Springfield, the first aj)- pointed in the State. On the 17th of June, 1892, she formally organized the first chapter in the State, the Mercy Warren, with twenty-three charter members. She retained the regency until October, 1893, when the chapter was well established with one hundred and twenty-eight members. The pressure of other duties now required her retirement. In 1901 Mrs. Calkins again accepted the regency for one year, and on her resignation was made honorary life regent.
The chapter early appointed a committee to seek out the neglected and forgotten graves of the Revolutionary soldiers of Springfield, and ever since that time they have been marked. Sixteen "real" daughters have been accepted members of the chapter, and their lives made brighter and in needed cases more comfortable by the kindly offices of a standing committee appointed for the purpose. The chapter has contributed to various patriotic objects, including fifty dollars for the relief of the Cuban reconcentrados; but in no direction has its work been more gratifying than in the local reawakening of a general interest in colonial and Revolutionary history.
At the call of Governor Wolcott, May 3, 1898, upon the breaking out of the Spanish War, for the formation of a State soldiers' relief association, the chapter at once took the lead in organizing a Springfield auxiliary, and kept energetically to the work until the receiving of the soldiers on their return home, August 27. A memorial tablet to the Springfield soldiers, to be placed in the city library, was the last act of the Springfield auxiliary, whose foremost officers were members of the chapter.
In 1899 the chapter established and furnished at no inconsiderable expense headquarters for its board of officers in connection with an assembly hall. The whole number of members enrolled is four hundred and twenty-three, and the present membership (April, 1904) is two hundred and seventy-five. Mrs. Calkins was one of the board of managers of the Springfield Soldiers' and Sailors' Aid Society at the time of the Spanish War. In 1895 the State primary school, through the policy of the State to place its young wards in families, had become so depleted that it was abolished and the property turned over to a board of trustees appointed by Governor Wolcott for the establishment of a hospital for epileptics. Mrs. Calkins was appointed one of the trustees of the hospital, and is still in its service.
Mrs. Calkins is a member of the Springfield Women's Club, an honorary member of the Teachers' Club, and a member of the Ramapogue Historical Society. Her church membership is with the First Congregational Society.