In every community are to be found women who, after discharging the domestic duties pertaining to wife and mother, find time to work with either pen or hand for the good of the community in which they live. When deep sorrow needs a comforting word, and tears are to be wiped away by soft and gentle hand, the poor to be relieved, and the hungry fed; when the forsaken need a friend, and the outcast a prayer; where good is to be done and the community made better in the name and by the grace of our loving God, they are at work. Such a life was led by Mrs. Eusebia B. Meeks, who died in Troy, Ohio, June 17, 1889. She was the daughter of Rev. John Blodgett, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Roxanna Davenport Blodgett, and was born June 7, 1821, in Champion, Jefferson county, New York.

Her father was of Huguenot ancestry, and the story of the escape of his ancestors from the bloody massacre of St. Bartholomew's day was handed down from generation to generation with reverent and thrilling interest. The spirit of bravery and, if need be, of martyrdom for conscience sake descended to the posterity of her Huguenot ancestor, and was possessed in a marked degree by the subject of this sketch.

Mrs. Meeks' early life was spent largely in the companionship of her father and her early education was conducted by him. She was a delicate child and when an infant became lame from an accident, the result of the carelessness of a nurse girl who had charge of her. For that reason she could not be sent to school, but she received a good home education and acquired the habits of deep, earnest thought, not only in her studies but other subjects of general interest. As she grew to womanhood her physical trouble grew better, and she was able to walk, but never entirely recovered from her lameness. When about eighteen years of age she entered and attended for two years a seminary at Harveysburg, conducted by the Friends, or, as they were called in that day, "Quakers." In her twentieth year she united with the Baptist church and for many years was a faithful, devoted member of that church, but in later years she united with the Presbyterian church, of Troy.

On the 11th day of February, 1847, she was married to Mr. William Harris, who died four years later. Their married life was one of rare affection and trust. One daughter was born to them,--now Mrs. Anna D. Stillwell, whose one aim in life has been to follow the example of her mother, and she is one of the good, useful women of Troy.

After her husband's death Mrs. Meeks made her home with her parents, who had removed to Casstown, Miami county, Ohio, until the 11th day of September, 1853, when she was united in marriage to Dr. I. S. Meeks. They removed to Troy, in November, 1859, and remained there until she was called from labor to reward.

When Mrs. Meeks was a girl of thirteen years, her father accepted a pastorate at Lebanon, Ohio, and there she was associated in church and society with the Corwins and had access to the library of Hon. Thomas Corwin. She early became an uncompromising foe of slavery and, intemperance. She was gifted as a writer and had the ability to clothe her thoughts in pure, vigorous English, but she never searched for graces of rhetoric to render attractive the arguments of her convictions. Her writings never sparkled with wit, yet were sometimes, in her earnestness, touched with the spirit of bitter, cutting sarcasm.

She was one of the active Crusaders of Troy, and devoted the later years of life to the cause of temperance, and she died a veteran in active warfare against the accursed traffic. Her voice and pen have long been silent in the solitude of the grave, but her memory remains with her friends and sisters of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, serving as an inspiration to them to battle on for a higher and nobler standard of manhood and womanhood. E. S. W.