CHAPTER VI.
MRS. W. E. MATHEWS.
("VICTORIA EARLE").
This very gifted writer was born May 27th, 1861, in Fort Valley, Ga., just prior to "the breaking out of the war" of the rebellion, being the youngest of nine children, all of whom were slaves.
MRS. W. E. MATHEWS.
It did not then appear to what extent the world would feel the influence of her pen and her strong moral and mental powers in after years. Those dark days of solicitude, filled with the gravest uncertainty as to the results of the then much talked of war, furnished but a very few bright hopes of a brilliant future to this then little girl and her associates. However, the world was open to her and Providence in the lead, to support her feeble, honest, childish efforts.
She left Georgia in 1869, spending about three years in Virginia, reaching New York in 1872, where she entered the public schools, in which she remained four years only, being compelled by necessity to leave and go to work for the support of a widowed mother and herself. This must have been a great trial to one so young and so intensely fond of study. She did not stop, however, because of obstacles and discouragements, but pushed her way onward, hewing out a pathway for herself; and in this way she has applied her powers as a thinker and writer. Ten years ago she began to write stories and has also edited the "Household Columns" in several journals, and has from time to time contributed to most if not all of our leading Afro-American journals and magazines.
She has worked on many of the New York leading dailies for years as a "sub," namely, The Times, Herald, Mail and Express, The Earthy Sunday Mercury and The Phonographic World, and she is now writing some able articles for Ringwood’s Journal of Fashion.
Among her stories are "Aunt Lindy," "Little Things," "Well," "Under the Elm," "The Underground Way," "Steadfast and True," "Nettie Mills," "Eugenia's Mistake," "Zelika," and others of peculiar interest.
She is now preparing for publication in book form an illustrated story which will be followed by an historical story.
She was married in 1879 to W. E. Mathews, of Petersburg, Va., and is the mother of one child, a boy of twelve ears. To say that "Victoria Earle" has already succeeded and stands shoulder to shoulder with most of her white sisters is only to tell a part of the truth. She indeed has but few equals, and when chances or opportunities and environments are compared, she may safely be said to be the peer of her more favored sisters.
She stands as a living example to the very large number of our young women who are so well acquainted with the trials and discouragements of a dependent life; and still more an example is she because by energy, courage and self-reliance she has steadily developed from a slave-horn child of dependence to a woman of national character with recognised worth and ability. The world has truly felt her impress. She is in demand wherever she is known and is honored by the intelligent of all classes whose fortune it is to become acquainted with her noble womanly and scholarly qualities.
The excellence of her writings is simply grand and encouraging.
IDA B. WELLS.