Representative women of New England/L. Isabel Heald

by Mary H. Graves

L. ISABEL HEALD

L. ISABEL HEALD was born in Dexter, Me., being the daughter of Otis and Emeline Robinson Seavy Cutler. Her father, moving to Portland in 1852, became the first appraiser at the port, and was holding this office at the time of his death, in May, 1868. He was a man of noble character and excellent judgment, having matters of grave importance submitted to his decision. His wife survived him many years, dying in May, 1884.

Otis Cutler was of the seventh generation of that branch of the Cutler family in New England, whose immigrant progenitor, John by name, died at Hingham, Mass., in February, 1638. It has been said that John Cutler, of Hingham, Mass., came from the vicinity of Norwich, England, in 1637 (see Morse); but this has been questioned. The History of Hingham, Genealogical, vol. ii., states that he had land granted him there, on Broad Cove, in 1635. From John¹ the line appears to have descended through Samuel,² Ebenezer,³ Ebenezer,⁴ Jonathan,⁵ and Tarrant,⁶ to Otis,⁷ born in 1817 at Royalston, Mass.

From another English-born Cutler, Robert,¹ of Charlestown, Mass., was descended the Rev. Timothy Cutler, D.D., the first rector of Christ Church, Boston, and "one of the first scholars of his age in the colonies." Others of this name in America have occupied high rank in the clerical, legal, and medical professions.

An uncle of Mrs. Heald, General Lysander Cutler, had an interesting career. Born in Royalston, Mass., in 1807, he moved to Dexter, Me., when a young man, engaged in business as a woollen manufacturer, and became the most eminent citizen of that place. Later in life he removed to Milwaukee, Wis. Enlisting at the breaking out of the Civil War, he was commissioned Colonel of the Sixth Wisconsin Regiment, served with great honor in the Army of the Potomac, and was afterward promoted to Major-general. He died in 1866.

Mrs. Heald's mother was a lovely character, gentle and conscientious, dispensing words of kindness and the quiet charities which shun publicity. The family home being in Portland during Mrs. Heald's childhood and youth, she was educated in the city schools. In the year 1870 she married John Sumner Heald, claim adjuster of the Maine Central Railroad. Mr. Heald is the grandson of the Hon. Mark Langdon Hill, of Phippsburg, Me., one of the early settlers, a prominent and wealthy man in his day. It was in his faniily barouche that General Lafayette was .taken through the streets of Portland when entertained there during his visit to the United States of America in 1824-25. Mr. Hill's barouche was the most elegant one at hand, and was loaned to Portland for the occasion.

Always of a deeply religious turn of mind, Mrs. Heald became when very young a member of the Episcopal church. She has been a student of creeds, and has. plunged into ancient and modern philosophy. She has studied science, theosophy, and the works of deep thinkers of all ages, not for diversion, but to find truth. Whatever her creed is to-day, her rule of life is most emphatically, "Love thy neighbor." She has the tenderest love and sympathy for children, and has been a willing helper in Sunday-schools. For a number of years she has been active in charitable and club work. It was she who was instrumental in forming the Cumberland Relief Cure, an organization which raised funds to send twenty-five men to the Keely Cure, furnishing and equipping a reading-room for them. Though there were some disappointing features in this labor, one bright particular case is so happy in results that it seems ample reward for all the effort put forth.

Mrs. Heald was for five years the efficient president of the Beecher Club, whose study was evolution; and she has been on the executive board of many of the well-known Portland associations, including the Women's Literary Union. At one time she belonged to fourteen organizations. She is now State president of the Maine division of the International Sunshine Society, an office that is no sinecure, since she is usually called to write no less than sixty letters a week. Attracted to the Sunshine columns in. the papers some time ago, she took hold of the York with such grasp that she was soon appointed its leader in Maine. This society is "not a charity, Init an interchange of kindly greetings and the passing on of good cheer." There are about a hundred and fifty daily and weekly papers reporting "Sunshine" news. The society was founded by Mrs. Cynthia Westover Alden in 1896. Its object is to incite its members to the performance of kind and helpful deeds, and to thus bring the sunshine of happiness into the greatest possible number of hearts and homes. Its active membership consists of people who are desirous of brightening life by some thought, word, or deed.

In a letter to the Journal the president-general, Mrs. Cynthia Westover Alden, writes: "Every week, regularly, your paper comes to Sunshine headquarters, and we read it with continued and renewed interest, especially the Sunshine work in your State. I write now to particularly thank you for your kindness, and trust that you are going to continue liking us forever and ever.

"With your energetic president, Mrs. Heald, of Portland, the State is becoming thoroughly organized. In fact, it is the best organized in Sunshine work of any State in the Union. There are now two thousand and sixty-six well-organized Sunshine branches reporting regularly, not counting the many branches that are formed, but sent! in their reports irregularly."

Mrs. Heald has incorporated the State of Maine division of the International Sunshine Society, and at this writing a petition to the Legislature for an approjiriation for the amelioration of the condition of the cripples in the State is in preparation. Names of men and women of influence have been secured, and it is reasonably hoped that it will succeed. If in the future attention is given these hopeless, helpless sufferers, it will be due to her untiring efforts in their behalf. Through her personal efforts several cripples have already enjoyed the services of a specialist. Her experience and observation have developed in an unusual degree all that is tender and lovable in her nature. Her quick sympathy with all suffering, both physical and mental, renders her ministrations doubly sweet. Her heart and hands are ready for all appeals for aid: to none is .she indifferent. She is eminently adapted to be at the head of an organization whose watchword is good cheer, for she is of pleasant address, and her greeting, even to the stranger, is always warm-hearted and gracious.