RUDE, Mrs. Ellen Sergeant, author and poet, born in Sodus. N. Y., 17th March, 1838. Her paternal grandmother was a Harkness, and her maternal grandmother was one of the pioneer women of the West. Both were women of superior intellect and force of character. Her mother died while she was an infant, and the daughter was reared under the tender care of her father, William Sergeant, who is still living, at the age of eighty-six.
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ELLEN SERGEANT RUDE.
She passed through the public schools of Sodus, and afterwards took a course of study in Genesee College, in Lima, N. Y. She became the wife of Benton C. Rude, a graduate of that institution, in 1859. She had always shown literary talent, and in college her compositions attracted notice for their excellence and finish. She has written much, both in prose and verse, for publication. Her sketches in the "Rural New Yorker" and "Arthur's Home Magazine" first brought her into notice. She won a prize for a temperance story from the "Temperance Patriot." The "Sunday-school Advocate" and " Well-Spring" have published many of her stories for children. As a temperance advocate she has done excellent service. She was the first woman chosen to the office of Worthy Chief Templar by the order of Good Templars of New York State. She made her first public address in the State lodge of Good Templars in Rochester, and was immediately placed on the board of managers of that order. She was made a member of the board of managers of the first State Woman's Christian Temperance Union, established in Syracuse, and was one of a committee sent from that convention to appeal to the Albany legislature for temperance laws. As a lecturer she was decidedly successful, but, in spite of the earnest solicitation of friends, she resigned the field to devote herself to domestic lift. For a few years she lived in St. Augustine, Fla., during which time she published a volume of poems entitled "Magnolia Leaves" (Buffalo, 1890). Some of the choicest poems of the "Arbor Day Manual" are from her pen. She has contributed to the "Magazine of Poetry " and now expends her literary work on poems and short stories. She lives in Duluth, Minn., where her husband and only son are engaged in the law.