Woman of the Century/Rose Hartwick Thorpe

THORPE, Mrs. Rose Hartwick, poet, born in Mishawaka, Ind., 18th July, 1850. Her family moved to Litchfield, Mich., in 1861, and in that town Rose grew to womanhood and received her education. In 1871 she became the wife of Edmund C. Thorpe. She was introduced to the public by her famous poem, "Curfew Must Not Ring To-Night," which appeared in 1870 in the Detroit, Mich., "Commercial Advertiser." That poem has made the circuit of the earth. It was written when ROSE HARTWICK THORPE. the author was a school-girl, and she kept it in her desk for more than a year, never dreaming that it was destined to make her name known throughout the civilized world. In 1883, at the commencement exercises in Hillsdale College, Mich., the president and faculty unanimously voted to confer upon her the honorary degree of Master of Arts. Among her earlier literary productions was a prose sketch, which she published in 1868. Her extreme diffidence and want of confidence in herself led her to keep her work in her desk. Her awakening came with "Curfew." Other well-known poems followed, among them being "The Station Agent's Story," "Red Cross," and "In a Mining Town." Although evidently a busy and prolific author, she has been in ill health for some years. In 1888 she and her family removed to San Diego, Cal., where they are pleasantly domiciled in Rosemere, Pacific Beach. There, in the eternal summer, beneath the blue sky, surrounded by ever-blooming gardens of flowers, each member of the family has recovered health and strength, and there Mrs. Thorpe finds abundant inspiration and leisure. Her father's family were artists, but she has inherited none of their artistic talent. The fondness for the brush and pencil passed over her and reappears in her daughter, now coming into womanhood.