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The Blue Book of Iowa Women A History of Contemporary Women

Compiled by Winona Evans Reeves, 1914.

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Mrs. Edward D. Chassell

Mary A. Calkins, daughter of Dr. Martin H. and Lucinda Louden Calkins, was born in Wyoming, Ia., Dec 13, 1865.  Her parents came to Wyoming in 1856, where Mrs. Calkins still resides.  Dr. Calkins died in 1909.  For fifty years he was a successful practitioner and a writer of ability.  He compiled a local history and delivered lectures on early Iowa history.  He was a member of the 19th and 20th General Assemblies of Iowa.  Mrs. Chassell was educated in the public schools and in Mr. Carroll, Ill., seminary and took advanced musical training in Chicago and Boston.  She taught music in Drake University and other colleges.  On Dec. 19, 1906, she was married to Edward D. Chassell, of Le Mars, by profession a newspaper man.  He has been a member of the General Assembly and was also State Binder.  She has one sister, Mrs. W. E. Briggs, of St. Paul, to whose children Martin Calkins, Walter Charles and Mary, she is devoted.  Mrs. Chassell has served the I. F. W> C. as a state officer and on state committees.  She is a P. E. O. and a D. A. R.  She is descended from Sir Thomas Kinne, knighted in 1618, and from Mary Allerton of the Mayflower.  She and her sister own the homestead in Oneida county, N. Y., which has been in the family since 1792.  Here Chas. G. Finney, the founder of Oberlin College and Robt. G. Ingersoll were frequent guests of her great grandfather.  She is an honorary member of the Pioneer Law Makers Association of Iowa.  She originated the first Old Home Week, celebrated in Iowa on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Wyoming.  Her father erected a monument in Wyoming to the memory of the 89 men to whom he administered the oat of allegiance and who formed the greater part of Co. K, 24th Iowa.

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