Elder flowers, a collection from the poems of Mrs. Susan B. Elder
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
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Susan Blanchard Elder was an American author whose writings include historical and literary criticisms, biographies, stories, poems, and dramas written especially for presentation in Roman Catholic colleges.
Background
Susan Blanchard Elder, a daughter of Albert Gallatin and Susan (Thompson) Blanchard, was born at Fort Jessup, Sabine Parish, Louisiana.
Her father, a graduate of West Point and a captain in the United States army, was stationed at Fort Jessup, a frontier post against the Indians on the Texas border. He later served through the Mexican War, and in the Civil War became a brigadier-general in the Confederate army.
Her mother, a native of Massachusetts, died when the daughter was very young.
Education
After spending several years in the North with relatives, Susan Blanchard returned to Louisiana and attended the Girls’ High School of New Orleans and St. Michael’s Convent of the Sacred Heart, St. James Parish.
Career
At sixteen she was writing, under the name “Hermine, ” stories and poems for newspapers. A few years later the Civil War broke, and upon the capture of New Orleans, the Elders took refuge in Selma, Alabama, where they turned their home into a Confederate hospital. After Lee’s surrender they returned to New Orleans and Susan Elder became a teacher of natural science and mathematics at the Picard Institute and the New Orleans High School. She was on the editorial staff of the Morning Star and contributed to various Roman Catholic journals. Upon the death of her husband in 1890, she long continued to live in New Orleans, but in her last years made her home with her only surviving child, a daughter, at whose home in Cincinnati she died.
She was on the editorial staff of the Morning Star and contributed to various Roman Catholic journals.
Her writings include historical and literary criticisms, biographies, stories, poems, and dramas written especially for presentation in Roman Catholic colleges.
Views
The two predominant motives in the author’s life, aside from her domestic affections, were her devotion to the cause of the South and her devotion to the Roman Catholic Church, to which she was a convert early in life. Her prose works show careful study and, in the case of the biographies of her brother-in-law and the Abbé Rouquette, the use of original material. Her one novel was little read outside the South. Her verse, which includes domestic, religious, and patriotic subjects, has deep, usually melancholy, feeling, but little originality, and the expression is often stilted. Noteworthy personal poems are “My Bridal Veil, " “The Mother’s Round, ” and “Home, ” which celebrates her fiftieth wedding anniversary. “Ash Wednesday” and “Palm Sun day” are religious poems of some merit. Probably her best poems are those which reflect the life and emotions of the old South, such as “Mammy’s Grieving” and “The Passing of Mammy. ”
Personality
Susan Elder was a serious woman to whom life seemed full of struggle and sorrow. Her rather square face, with strong chin, high forehead, and deep-set thoughtful eyes, was sad, but neither severe nor bitter.
Connections
In 1855 she married Charles D. Elder of Baltimore, a brother of Rev. William H. Elder, Archbishop of Cincinnati.