the century, the Smiths in 1800. Joel W. Smith was a graduate of Yale. He had eight brothers, and in 1868 the father and his nine sons cast ten votes for General Grant for president. Joel became a physician and was settled for a few years at Croton, near the old home, in Delaware County. This village has found it difficult to get a satisfactory name, and during the last sixty years has been known successively as Croton, East Franklin, and Treadwell. Here, while the village still bore its original name, Mrs. Noyes was born on April 16, 1853, and was named Ida Elizabeth. A sister two years younger died in childhood. She remained the only daughter in a family of five children, one of the brothers being older by two years, the others much younger than herself.

The father, Dr. Smith, was one of that great army of Americans who in the fifties of the last century heard the call of the West. The father of La Verne Noyes yielded to it in 1854, but it was not until three years later that Dr. Smith left the home of his fathers to seek another in the new state of Iowa. Ten years only had passed since the admission of Iowa to the Union, and when in 1857 Dr. Smith settled in Charles City, Floyd County, he found himself in a country of pioneers. Charles City, or St. Charles as it was then known, is in northern Iowa, seventy-five miles west of the Mississippi. Railroads had not yet reached that part of Iowa. It was, in fact, the real frontier. The Indians still lingered in the neighborhood. Bears and wolves were found. Ida was about four years old when the family reached the new home. The older brother, Irving, was six. It was dangerous for the children to wander far afield, and alarm was felt if they were too long out of their mother's sight. Until 1864 there were only two of them, and they were inseparable companions and constant playmates. As they grew older together Ida became accustomed to the sports of a boy. The Cedar River flows through the village and in the family, traditions have come down of big pickerel caught by them. As the country settled they were allowed great freedom, and, with forest and stream inviting them, made much of the out-of-door life. Ida was notable throughout her girlhood for rather striking red cheeks, which she no doubt owed to this life in the open. In the early years the family endured many of the hardships incident to a pioneer life. Doctors were few and far between on those western prairies, and the father was often compelled to answer distant calls in all weathers. Nothing pleased his young daughter more than to ride with him, when weather and distance permitted, on his visits into the country. The father's reputation and

practice constantly increased, until he became known as one of the leading physicians of the state. The railroad came, the village developed into a small but thriving city, and the conditions of life greatly improved. Dr. Smith was one of the most public-spirited of the citizens. He was much interested in the village school from the first and was early made president of the school board. He had been a school teacher in early life, and his interest in and ambition for the schools of his western home were great and fruitful. It was said of him, "None but himself can know and eternity only can reveal the labors, the sacrifices, and the pecuniary cost to himself of the work which he has done for the schools of Charles City and vicinity."

Both the children were exceptionally bright. The brother, Irving, had unusual intellectual gifts and ended his life at forty-four as professor of pathology and therapeutics in Iowa State College. The sister, Ida, was perhaps equally bright, and at eleven years of age was in classes with boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen. Brilliant as her brother was, he kept only two years in advance of her, and he was two years older. When he went to Iowa State College as a student in 1868, at seventeen, it was only natural that the sister who admired him should resolve to follow him. This she did in 1870, when she too was seventeen. She was admitted to the State College in this wise: She wrote to the president a letter so well considered and in penmanship so clear and beautiful that he told her to come, and as some form of service was at that time required from all students he appointed her his private secretary. After her brother's graduation she spent a term at the State University of Iowa City, but soon returned and completed her college course in the institution at Ames, where she was graduated with honors in 1874. A fellow-student says of her: "During her college days she was admired for her talent as a presiding officer, as a fine speaker, and as one greatly talented in reading and acting." She was a brilliant student, learning with unusual facility, so that study was never a drudgery but always a delight. It was indeed so much of a delight that she continued to be a student to the end of her life. Her work in the classroom is reported to have been well-nigh perfect, and she was a recognized leader in college activities. It was in the college at Ames that she and Mr. Noyes first met. He was a Junior when she entered, and was a classmate of her brother. They became acquainted, and he found the bright, vivacious, auburn-haired girl most attractive. The attraction indeed was mutual and resulted in something more than mere acquaint

ance.

Returning home after her graduation in 1874 she became a teacher in the Charles City High School. A popular and successful instructor, she continued teaching for two years or more, when her approaching wedding day took her away from her classes. She found much of her recreation during the three years between her graduation and marriage in horseback riding. A friend of the family had brought back from the South at the close of the Civil War in 1865 a young pony, which later came into her possession. Her slight figure matched the pony's small stature, and Daisy, whom she rode thousands of miles, continued for many years to minister to her health and happiness. Daisy accompanied her through all changes of residence, serving her to a very advanced age, and when too old longer to carry her hundred pounds was sent back to Iowa by Mr. Noyes and cared for to the end of her long and useful life. Daisy was believed to have lived fifty-four years, an age so great as to deserve recording.

Ida Smith became Ida Noyes in 1877. The father of La Verne Noyes had brought his family from Genoa, Cayuga County, New York, to Springville, Linn County, Iowa, in 1854, when the boy was five years old. The son had grown up on his father's farm and had entered Iowa State College in 1868, graduating in 1872. He had later established himself in business in Batavia, Illinois. Mr. Noyes possessed in a very unusual degree two qualifications for success in life. He had by nature a genius not only for invention but also for the conduct of business. How many devices he has invented he probably does not himself know, but he has secured patents for more than a hundred. When he began his business life in Batavia it was in the manufacture and sale of his own inventions in improved haying tools and gate hangers. The acquaintance of the two young people in college had developed into mutual affection, and an engagement had followed. As soon, therefore, as Mr. Noyes began to see his way in business they were married. The wedding took place in Charles City on May 24, 1877. Mr. and Mrs. Noyes did not set up housekeeping in Batavia. A gentleman with a large, fine house and a very small family asked them to make their home in his house, so that with slender resources they were rather sumptuously housed during their two years in that attractive village.

It has been said that Mrs. Noyes was a student, and that studious application was not a task but a delight to her. It was impossible for her to be idle. Her small body was a dynamo of ceaseless activity. Newly married, in a new community where she had few social ties and no household duties, she applied herself to reading and study. Web

ster's Unabridged Dictionary was kept at hand for ready reference. She found it heavy and hard to handle. She therefore suggested to Mr. Noyes that he, being an inventor, should devise something to hold it for her so that she would only have to turn the leaves. On her consenting to take over his correspondence and accounting, which she was perfectly qualified to do by her experience in college as secretary to the president, Mr. Noyes in the course of a few weeks invented the dictionary holder, which proved to be a stroke of genius and laid the foundation of their fortune. The new business so increased his labors that Mrs. Noyes continued for a number of years to keep the accounts and conduct the correspondence, and she proved a very able business associate through these early years. The success of the new business led them to Chicago in 1879, and that city was thenceforth their home. The correspondence and accounting were now given up for housekeeping, and they made their home at first on the West Side, later on the South Side, finally locating permanently in the North Division. In Chicago Mrs. Noyes found opportunities for the art studies which she had long desired. She lost no time therefore in making her way to the Art Institute and enrolling as a student. Her impulse toward art had appeared in her girlhood. She began her studies in drawing in Charles City and continued them in Batavia, making there also a beginning in painting. She cherished an ambition to become an artist and was encouraged in it by her husband. On coming to Chicago, therefore, she welcomed the opportunity which the then newly organized Art Institute afforded her for continuing her studies under competent teachShe and her husband conceived a life-long interest in the Institute, of which Mr. Noyes became a governing life-member. It goes without saying that Mrs. Noyes never intended to become a professional painter. But she earnestly desired to attain a degree of excellence that would help to enrich her life and add to its satisfactions. She had well-defined ambitions. This was one of them. Another was to see as much of the planet on which she lived as other occupations and duties would permit. She was ambitious to improve her mind, to widen her horizon, to add to her information. She was mentally alert. She read much. But books only served to awaken and increase a desire to see the people and things of which she read. These longings largely shaped her life.

ers.

Mr. Noyes prospered in business, and this opened the way for her to realize her longing to continue her studies in painting in the Mecca of all students of art. It was in 1886, nine years after her marriage,

that she made her first trip abroad. She left Chicago in November, 1886, and did not return till the end of June, 1888. She wrote during this absence, as she did in all her absences from home, a series of most interesting letters to her husband, which have been carefully preserved. Her penmanship was perfect, and she wrote with great care. did not sit down and write as things occurred to her at the moment but thought out and arranged in advance the contents of her letters and then wrote in a natural, simple, and charming style. A reader of her letters finds no difficulty in believing what she says in one of them that rhetoric and Kames's Elements of Criticism were the most enjoyable studies of her college course. She began to write on the steamer, and her letters gave a detailed story of every day, from that on which she sailed to her arrival in port on her return. She did this on all her journeys (and these were not infrequent) to give pleasure to her husband. She wrote twice and sometimes three times a week, and Mr. Noyes wrote just as often. On this first voyage abroad, after spending a month in Heidelberg with a friend, she went to Paris, passing through Coblenz, which she was assured was "impregnably fortified." Most of the nineteen months of her stay abroad at this time she spent in Paris studying French, drawing, and painting. She spent much time in the famous Julien School but tried out the methods of others also. In March, 1888, she writes of her daily routine as follows:

In the morning I rise soon after daylight, which is not too early at this season, make my toilet, take the coffee and rolls, and get to work at the art school at halfpast eight. Dejeuner occupies the noon hour, after which comes painting again till four or five o'clock. The time between this and getting ready for dinner is usually occupied with a walk for fresh air and exercise and doing little errands or making calls. You know all about the length of the dinner hour [Mr. Noyes had run over and visited her] and how easy it is to sit down afterward and talk with friends and acquaintances, or go somewhere in the evening. Still my evenings are not all spent this way, as you know I write an occasional letter, go to dancing school one evening each week, and up to this time have prepared French exercises for a class which I attended two afternoons each week.

While I am quoting from this interesting series of letters I cannot resist the temptation to use the following passage, so full of significance and interest at the time this sketch is written at the end of the Great War which restored to France her lost provinces:

One incident of the national fête day which I witnessed deserved to be recorded. It was early morning and I was standing in the Place de la Concorde quite enraptured with the fairy-like appearance given to it by garlands of white globes, which, like festoons of flowers, were carried in all directions from lamp-post to lamp-post, where the ordinary burners and lanterns were replaced by an immense cluster of globes