1914] Deane,— Maria L. Owen 155 
Owen, writes, " Maria might very well have inherited a taste for out- 
door life from old Hugh. He evidently was fond of trees for he planted 
the row of sycamores at his home in Haverill [Massachusetts], and all 
the Tallants I ever knew loved nature and were sportsmen and out- 
doors people. One cousin at Nantucket scoured the waters there for 
sea animals for an aquarium. The Tallants, also, had a quiet persis- 
tence, so that once started on a study they never gave it up, but would 
keep on in spite of all discouragements." 
In regard to her strong constitution and freedom from those physical 
ailments that hamper the botanist who must be much afield, Mrs. 
Owen writes on March 28, 1905, “I owe my almost unbroken health 
to a grandmother and two grandfathers who lived in the same fortu- 
nate condition to the ages of 76, 79 and 86 respectively, and still more 
perhaps to the great-grandfather who lived to be 108, and in his old 
age could put his hands on the near horse of two standing side by side 
and leap over them both. To him also I doubtless owe largely the 
happy disposition and the elastic spirits that have come right up after 
many of the trials that seem to be appointed for all, for he 
“Delved by day and sang by night 
With a hand that never wearied, 
And a heart forever light,” 
and passed through his long life 
“With [his] eyes brimful of laughter, 
And [his] mouth as full of song." 
Owing so much to my forebears I am trying to be a good ancestress 
myself, and pass along the blessings I have received." 
Her letters teem with deep devotion to her native home and are 
full of tender love for the flora of the island, and, though she left the 
spot at a comparatively early age, she never ceased to regard Nantucket 
as her true home, and constant were the visits she made there to her 
dear island friends. 
At one time Mrs. Owen taught in the school of George B. Emerson 
in Boston, and in 1845, 1846, and 1847 she was in South Boston teach- 
ing at the Perkins Institution for the Blind when Dr. Samuel G. Howe 
was superintendent. It was at the latter place that she met her 
future husband, Dr. Varillas L. Owen, who was Dr. Howe's secretary. 
Later she had a private school in Nantucket, which she left to become 
an assistant in the Nantucket High School. 
