f Things, Tied Up With Strings" to
the hearty reception of her latest novel every step of the way spells
success.
Margaret Hill was born in Indiana and came to Kansas in 1888 to teach
English in the Topeka High School. Two years later, she became the wife
of Dr. William McCarter. Of this union there are two daughters, students
at Baker University and the Topeka High School and a young son, his
mother's literary critic.
A wife and a mother first, a Kansas woman second, and an author third is
the way Mrs. McCarter rates herself. She is capable of and does do all
her housework.
Her love for literature she owes to her mother, who believed in higher
education and taught Margaret to prize the few books that came her way.
After leaving the school room, the teacher instinct still strong within
her, she argued if she could teach out of books written by others,
why not out of books of her own? Then followed poems, short stories,
biography, textbooks, the editing of Crane Classics, "One Hundred Kansas
Women" and miscellanies.
In 1902, "Cuddy and Other Folks" was written and in 1903, "The
Cottonwood's Story."
This same year, "The Overflowing Waters," the story of the 1903 flood,
and one of her best bits of heart writing paid for the school books of
almost a thousand unfortunate children. "Cuddy's Baby" appeared in
1908, followed the next year with "In Old Quivera," a thread of Coronado
history. "The Price of The Prairies," three weeks after publication in
the fall of 1910, became Kansas' best seller. "The Peace of The Solomon
Valley" came out in 1911 and proved a popular gift book. "The Wall of
Men," Mrs. McCarter's 1912 offering should be one of the required books
in Kansas schools. It is authentic history and the close of the story
leaves every Kansan with a greater respect and love for the state and
the heroic pioneers who stood as a living wall between Kansas and the
slave question. 1913 gave us the "Master's Degree," considered by many
her best work. This year we have "Winning The Wilderness."
Mrs. McCarter founded the Club Member and organized the Sorosis, serving
as president seven years and two terms as president of the Topeka
Federation of Women's Clubs. Baker University, at Baldwin, Kansas,
gave her an honorary Master's Degree in 1909, its semi-centennial
anniversary.
BESSIE MAY BELLMAN. and JUNE BELLMAN HENTHORNE.
Bessie May Bellman and June Bellman Henthorne, her daughter, hail from
Winfield
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