12 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Mrs. Mayo chose for her first topics at these meetings, "Mother and 

 Daughter" and ''Making Farm Work Easier." She spoke usually with- 

 out notes, talking simply and directly from her heart and experience, 

 face to face with those who came to hear her. The results surprised the 

 most sanguine. The meetings for women proved unique and far-reaching. 



The first of the Women's Sections was held at Kalkaska, November 14, 

 1895. Afterward when asked what convinced her of the use of the sep- 

 arate meeting for women, Mrs. Mayo instanced this first meeting. "I 

 shall never forget it," she said. "They gave us a little reading room with 

 but few chairs. I really questioned myself if anyone would come. Twice 

 we had to send out for more chairs. I stated the object of the meeting, 

 all the time watching my audience, trembling. They listened, quietly. 

 On a few of the older womens' faces I saw tears. I talked for half an 

 hour, when some school girls came in. Then I talked to them, kindly, 

 tenderly, and sat down feeling my meeting had been almost a failure. 

 But a beautiful old lady (with large golden earrings and a gay blanket 

 shawl) came up to me, put her arms around me so tenderly and kissing 

 me said, 'If I could have heard such a talk as that forty years ago I 

 should have been a better mother.' " 



Reports show that 5,309 women attended Mrs. Mayo's sections that first 

 year at twenty institutes, including the State meeting. In 1896-7 she 

 attended forty-five institutes ; in 1897-8, twenty-eight ; in 1898-9, eighteen ; 

 and in 1899-00, twelve. Each year she presided at the Women's Section 

 of the Round-Up. All through her service she addressed the general in- 

 stitute sections, usually in the evening, once or twice at each place. No 

 account is made of these addresses. It seems, however, fair to estimate 

 that her audiences averaged two hundred a day, taking her work all 

 through. 



Her topics, added as the work grew, were "The Well Bred Child," 

 "Home Life on the Farm," "Poultry Raising for the Farmer's Wife," 

 "How to Keep the Boys on the Farm," "Mother and the School." "The 

 House We Live In," "The Unappreciated Side of Farm Life," "The 

 Mother's Greatest Need." "Wifehood and Motherhood," and "Mother and 

 Children." 



The extreme and prolonged illness of her daughter forced Mrs. Mayo 

 to gradually forego an active part in promoting those undertakings so 

 dear to her for the advancement of the rural people and to assist them 

 chiefly by counsel and encouragement. Bravely, with an indomitable 

 courage characteristic of so noble a nature as hers, she stood day and 

 night at the post of her nearest duty as now revealed to her. For months, 

 without a sign to others, she fought against the inroads upon herself of 

 an incurable malady, giving up her place at her daughter's bedside only 

 three weeks before transition came to her own dauntless spirit, April 21, 

 1903. 



Thus lived among, and thus has gone before, the farm women of Mich- 

 igan one who was affectionately known as "Mother Mayo." Not by her 

 many years was the title won, but by the shedding abroad of a sympa- 

 thetic, dignified womanliness that constantly suggested the highest type 

 of motherhood. J. B. 



