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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. W. G. Blood

Jane Ewing Blood, was born at Kittaning, Armstrong county, Pa.  Her father, the Rev. Thomas Ewing, D. D., was an alumnus of Washington and Jefferson College, and of the Allegheny Theological Seminary.  He was pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Kittaning, Pa., 1864 -1880, was president of Parsons College, Fairfield, Ia., 1880-1889, and was principal of the Academy at Corning, Ia., 1889-1905.  He died, July, 1905.  He was a scholarly man of a very high type of Christian character.  Her mother, Anna Maria Graham, was born of Revolutionary ancestry at Brownsvville, Pa., July 16, 1844.  She was distinguished by unusual beauty and intellectual brilliancy.  She died at Fairfield, September, 1884.  Mrs. Blood was educated at Parson's College, Fairfield, a coeducational Christian College, in the class of 1890.  For a number of years after leaving school she made her home with her grand mother, Mary Rebecca Graham, at Brownsville, Pa., where in the same house and the same room in which her mother had been married, she was married to William Graffen Blood, a successful attorney of Keokuk, Jany. 15, 1903.  Mr. Blood is the son of Col. H. B. Blood, a Civil War veteran, born near Worcester, Mass., and of Anna Belle Graffen, who belonged to a Quaker family of Philadelphia.  They came to Keokuk in 1876.  Mr. and Mrs. W. G. Blood have one son, William Graffen Blood, Jr., born Oct. 2, 1904.  His paternal great-great-great grandfather was a Lexington minute man, Nathaniel Blood.  Mrs. Blood is a dyed-in-the-wool blue Presbyterian.  She served for three years as Treasurer of the Iowa Presbyterial Missionary Society Auxiliary to the Woman's Board of the Northwest at Chicago.  Her sister, Rebecca Ewing McClintock (Mrs. Paul W.) is engaged in foreign mission work on the Island of Hainan, China.  During her visits to this country she has spoken in many Iowa churches and no one who has met this brilliant, charming woman could forget her or the missionary message she always leaves in the hearts of her hearers.  Mrs. Blood's brother, Prof. James F. Ewing, of Portland, Oregon, is an alumnus of Princeton University, Class 1893.  He is the principal of Portland Academy, an elder in the First Presbyterian church, and superintendent of the Sunday School.  Mrs. Blood is a member of the Daughters of the Revolution, and of the Daughters of the American Revolution, joining on the service of Michael Sowers.  She served on the committee of the Keokuk chapter, which raised funds for the monument to Chief Keokuk, unveiled in Rand Park, Oct. 22, 1913.  Her son, Graffen, was one of the two children who unveiled the statue.  She belongs to the Civic League, Visiting Nurse Association, Shakespeare Club, Mentor Club, Current Events Club, Fortnightly Club, Wednesday Reading Club, Woman's Whist League, Keokuk Book Club, Y. W. C. A., Westminster Guild, the Rebecca Ewing Circle, Woman's Missionary Society, Chapel Fund Society, the Benevolent Union, Travel Class, Monday Music Club, and the Keokuk Country Club.  She has inherited a collection of antique furniture, old china and silver, which completely furnishes her home, a ten room house on Fulton Terrace.  From the plate and knocker on the front door to the quaint three cornered cupboard in the kitchen, the house is filled with an incomparable collection of furnishings in perfect state of preservation, which fills with longing the heart of a lover of the antique.

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