Olive Pond Amies (c. 1844–1917) was an American educator, lecturer, and editor from theU.S. state ofNew York. She founded the training school for teachers inLewiston, Maine; served as editor of aUniversalist Church publication; and was the first president of the Woman's Health Protective Association of the United States. Amies favored thetemperance movement andwomen's suffrage.
Olive Pond was born ca. 1844,[1] inJordan, New York. She was two weeks old when her father died, and the mother and child went to the home of the grandparents inNew Britain, Connecticut. There the mother worked untiringly with her needle for the support of herself and her two children. The older child, a boy, was placed in the care of an uncle, and to Olive the mother took the place of father, mother, brother and sister. When Olive was four years old, she and her mother left the home of her grandmother and went to the village to board, so that Olive might be sent to school. Soon after this the mother married Cyrus Judd, a man of influence in New Britain. Olive continued in school for many years. She passed through the course of the New Britain high school, was graduated from the State Normal School (nowCentral Connecticut State University), and later, after several years of teaching, was graduated from the Normal and Training School (nowState University of New York at Oswego) inOswego, New York.
Amies was a leader in school and became eminent as a teacher. For many years, she gave model lessons at conventions and institutes. For five years, in the State of New York and two in the State ofMaine, she was in demand in the county teachers' institutes. She founded the training school for teachers inLewiston, Maine, and graduated its first classes. In 1877, she began to edit the primary department ofThe Sunday School Helper, published inBoston, the exponent for the Universalist Church. She held State positions in theWoman's Christian Temperance Union and theNational Woman Suffrage Association, and delivered lectures on the different themes connected with those two organizations. She also spoke onkindergarten and object-teaching. Her "Conversations on Juvenile Reforms" were exceedingly popular wherever given.[2] Amies served as president of theWomen's Health Protective Association of the United States.[3]
In 1871, she married the Rev. Joseph Hay Amies, pastor of the Universalist Church, Lewiston. They had a family of six children, three girls and three boys, of whom one son and one daughter died while young. Amies made her home inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania. She was brought up aMethodist but in later years, became anEpiscopalian.[2] Amies died at her home inSecane,Delaware County, Pennsylvania on March 3, 1917 from heart disease.[4] She was buried in the West Laurel Hill Cemetery on March 8, 1917.[5]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain:Croly, Jane Cunningham (1898).The History of the Woman's Club Movement in America (Public domain ed.). H. G. Allen & Company. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain:Willard, Frances Elizabeth (1893).A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches Accompanied by Portraits of Leading American Women in All Walks of Life (Public domain ed.). Moulton.ISBN 9780722217139.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)