Spafford, Mary Otis Preston,
Spafford papers,
1879-1933
Manuscript Collection: MS 0717
2
boxes
Agency History/Biographical note:
Mary Otis Preston was born in Granby, Massachusetts, on July 20,
1857. Her parents were Calvin Preston, a farmer, and Sarah Montague
Moody Preston. After attending local and district schools, she
entered Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1876 and graduated in 1879.
She then worked as "boy's attendant" at the Clarke Institute for Deaf
Mutes in Northampton, Massachusetts for two years. In the summer of
1882 Spafford went to Wellington, South Africa to work at Huguenot
Seminary, the first institution for the higher education of women in
that country. She taught Latin, physics, and a number of other
subjects, managed the school's financial accounts, and served as
acting principal for a short time. She returned to the United States
in 1889 and in 1890 married William Swain Spafford, whom she had met
when he was stationed in South Africa with the South Irish Artillery.
They had four children. She died in South Hadley, Massachusetts on
April 29, 1933 at the age of seventy-five.
Scope and Content:
The Mary Otis Preston Spafford Papers consist of correspondence,
biographical information, memorabilia, and a photograph. Of
particular interest are letters that Spafford wrote in 1880 and
1882-1889. The 1880 letter is addressed to her Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary classmates and describes her work as "boy's attendant" at
the Clarke Institute for Deaf Mutes (now the Clarke School for the
Deaf) in Northampton, Massachusetts. The letters from 1882-1889 were
written while she was a teacher at Huguenot Seminary in Wellington,
South Africa. This correspondence is chiefly addressed to members of
her family, the Prestons of South Hadley, Massachusetts. The
earliest letters in the collection describe her railroad and
steamship journey to South Africa by way of New Haven, New York City,
and London, where she stayed at the Temperance Hotel and went
signtseeing. Subsequent letters describe Huguenot Seminary,
Wellington and the surrounding area, and her activities in great
detail. She discusses her work as a teacher and her other duties,
which included keeping financial accounts, buying supplies, and
serving as acting principal. She also discusses students and other
teachers, government inspections of the Seminary, the construction of
new buildings at the school, and visitors, including a team of
astronomers lead by Simon Newcomb of the U.S. Naval Observatory who
came to South Africa in 1882 to view the transit of Venus. In
addition, Spafford describes her impressions of "colored people" in
South Africa, her temperance work, missionary meetings and mission
work, visits to Inanda Seminary and a Zulu mission, and her summer
and holiday activities, which included traveling through the country
and participating in the Chautauqua Circle (a literary organization
related to the Chautauqua Movement in the United States). There are
occasional references to her relationship with William Swain
Spafford, a gunner stationed with the British Army in South Africa
whom she would marry in 1890. The final letters in the collection
were written in April and May 1889. They describe her voyage to
England on the S.S. Tartar and another round of sightseeing in
London. A number of Mount Holyoke Female Seminary alumnae who were
missionaries and teachers in South Africa are regularly mentioned in
these letters, especially Anna E. Bliss and Abbie P. Ferguson (the
first teachers and principals of Huguenot Seminary), M. Lizzie
Cummings Gamble, Sarah E. Holbrook, Carrie E. Jannasch, and M. Emma
Landfear. The letters for 1882-1889 were transcribed by Spafford's
granddaughter, Ruth M. Beebe, and the transcripts, which are indexed,
are part of this collection. In addition, these papers include an
obituary and other biographical information about Spafford as well as
a class pin and a photograph of her, both probably dating from her
final year at Mount Holyoke, 1879.
Cite as: Mary Otis Preston Spafford Papers, Mount Holyoke
College Archives and Special Collections, South
Hadley, MA.
Access Restrictions: Unrestricted
Series List:
- Correspondence
, 1880-1889, 1928
, 5 folders
- Transcripts of Correspondence
, 1882-1889
, 9 folders
- Biographical Information
, ca. 1904, 1906, 1933
, 1 folder
- Memorabilia
, ca. 1879
, 1 folder
- Photograph
, ca. 1879
, 1 folder
|
