--- title: Nellie N. Russell — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · full text with trees description: Nellie N. Russell, «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: Historical --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/3/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Gleanings from Chinese folklore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/) / Nellie N. Russell # Nellie N. Russell Nellie N. Russell of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell: the whole text, 125 sentences and 3317 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/3/page/2/) Historical[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") The enduring charm of a rich personality is ever found to be in devotion to a chosen cause.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") Such a personality is here presented in a brief study of an earnest life of effort and high purpose.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") Nellie Naomi Russell was born in Ontonagon, Michigan, March 31, 1862.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") The family removed to Wisconsin when she was very young, and there her father died when she was about eight years of age.[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") She was the second of four children whom the widowed mother took to Vermont to live with one of their uncles.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") He also was soon taken away, and the family removed to Ludlow, in that state.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") Nellie, however, spent much of her time at West Rutland.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") Here she united with the church, and attended school, until her mother’s death in 1877.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") At this time the eldest sister, Janet, was in Michigan, and the following spring Nellie, with her brother William, joined her there, while the younger sister remained with their guardian, Dr. D. F.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") Coolidge, in Ludlow.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") Nellie attended school in Ontonagon, but she longed to return to New England.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") Dr. Coolidge, at her earnest request, advanced the money for her travelling expenses from the funds of a small legacy left her by her uncle, on condition that it should be returned to the fund from her first earnings.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") In the autumn of the year 1879, Nellie, although so young, taught a country school, boarding around from house to house, as was the custom at that time.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") The sum advanced to her was returned from her first earnings with the scrupulous integrity which, throughout her life, marked all her business dealings.[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") She won the admiration of the school district by her industry and capacity for work and service both in school and out.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") At the close of the session she went to North Bennington, Vermont, where she spent two years in the family of Mrs. Coolidge’s sister, Mrs. H. W. Spafford.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") All this time her great desire had been to prepare herself for missionary service.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") In order that she might get the education requisite for it she toiled and saved until she was able to enter Northfield Seminary, which had just been founded by Mr. D. L. Moody.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") After the first year she was given a scholarship.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") With this as a help she was able to meet all other expenses by what she earned during vacations.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") All she had received from the scholarship she later returned to the institution she had learned to love.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") At Northfield she spent four years in study and congenial work.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") During the last two years she roomed with Lila Peabody, now Mrs. Edward F.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") Cragin of Brooklyn, New York, with whom she formed a friendship, one of the most intimate and strongest of her life.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") It is to this friendship that we are indebted for the few details of the years between her entrance into the seminary and going to China.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") She was an eager, enthusiastic student and was recognized at once by her companions as a leader, was made president of her class, and of the first missionary society formed among the pupils of the Northfield Seminary.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") Mrs. Cragin says of her, “She was of a deeply spiritual nature.”[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") I remember her telling me that from her early childhood she loved no stories so well as those of foreign missionaries, and that she hoped, even when a little girl, that some day she might become one.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") One June morning, just before graduation, Mr. Moody took us for an early drive.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") He told us of a plan he had for us to go together to Chicago, to be pastor’s assistants and Sunday-school workers in Mr. Moody’s, the Chicago Avenue Church.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") The Rev. Charles F.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") Goss was the pastor at that time.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") It seemed a large undertaking for two inexperienced young women to go from the little village of Northfield to the great city of Chicago, and to engage in such a work.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") But Mr. Moody felt confident of the results and assured us that we could do it, and so we made the venture.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") Our experiences the first winter were strangely new and varied.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") We worked under Dr. Goss’s directions, calling upon church members and others who we thought might be influenced to attend the services.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") We also visited the sick and helped such as were in need in the neighbourhood.[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") Our Sunday-school work was among the very poor, and in localities where we went with not a little trepidation.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") Our custom was to select a street and to call from house to house, from family to family.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") We asked the children of those visited to come to the Sunday-school, and gave them cards telling them when and where to go.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") In many cases the parents could not understand English, but, as the children practically lived on the streets and so picked up its language, they understood us when we asked them to come and to bring others with them.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") In this way we gathered the children into Sunday-school, the boys into Miss Russell’s class and the girls into mine.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") Miss Russell soon had a class of one hundred and fifty or more boys.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") In connection with this there were organized evening classes.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") The help of young men, who taught the boys carpentry and other kinds of manual work, was secured, and they were encouraged to seek other vocations than those of newspaper venders and boot-blacks.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") Some showed unusual talent, but had no opportunity for study or advancement.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") Miss Russell wrote to Mr. Moody with regard to them and asked if an arrangement could be made by which the most promising could be admitted to Mt.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") Hermon.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") He gladly entered into the plan and carried out her wishes.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") A number of these boys thus entered Mt.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") Hermon school and afterward took college courses.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") They were accompanied all the way upward by the sympathy, advice, and assistance of Miss Russell.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") She kept in touch with many of them all her life, corresponding with them after going to China, and hunting them up during her furloughs in this country.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") Miss Russell’s great characteristics were, I think, the giving of herself unsparingly for others, and doing this with sympathy, tenderness, and love.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") One incident, among many which I recall, strikingly illustrates this.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") During the anarchist riots in Chicago, when even men did not dare go into the disturbed neighbourhood, Miss Russell went without fear, and without protection, to the anarchist headquarters to comfort the little old mother of one of the condemned men.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") After five years of earnest, successful work in Chicago, Miss Russell, well fitted by such training, felt that the time had come for her to go to the distant field, which she always had kept in view.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") The way was opened for her to enter the work in China under the Woman’s Board of the Interior in connection with the American Board of Foreign Missions.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") She accepted the opportunity as the fruition of the hope and desire of childhood, girlhood, and young womanhood, and in twenty-one years of devoted service made “good proof of her ministry.”[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") The record of the rare life of Miss Russell is in the hearts of many to whom she was very dear.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") It is suggestive of some of her loveliest qualities that it has been difficult to secure anything beyond the bare historical facts with regard to her early years.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") The brief outline, given by the only sister who survives her, Mrs. J. R. Branaman, and a lifelong friend, Mrs. D. F.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") Coolidge of Ludlow, Vermont, show how heavy were the burdens of her youth and explain, in a measure, her peculiar and yearning sympathy for toilers struggling under difficulties for an entrance into a larger intellectual and social life; for widowed mothers, caring for groups of children, and for young students making their way with little aid through courses of study.[64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") Of her own early experiences she rarely spoke.[65](65/ "tree and pragmatics") In years of close companionship I learned little of them beyond the ever-recurring suggestion of her rich inheritance from a father of deep religious faith and a mother brave and tender, with the highest standards of duty.[66](66/ "tree and pragmatics") These so impressed her daughter that, in incidental ways, they were often implied in the reasons given for her choice of lines of conduct.[67](67/ "tree and pragmatics") Her warmth of affection for her own was apparent in every mention of them, and knowing this, one can realize what separation from them, even in childhood, meant to her.[68](68/ "tree and pragmatics") She truly “Bore the yoke in her youth” and learned to carry it so buoyantly, and walk under it with such elasticity of spirit, that one’s memory of her is always that of largeness and joy rather than of mere patience or resignation.[69](69/ "tree and pragmatics") She knew better than most of God’s children how to delight in all the beautiful things her Heavenly Father had placed in the earthly environment, and it was not until disease and sorrow had wasted her reserves of strength that she began to speak often of the life beyond.[70](70/ "tree and pragmatics") To that she looked and for it she longed, not as rest from service but as larger opportunity and wider vision.[71](71/ "tree and pragmatics") The springs of her life deepened as the physical resources were depleted, and we who were much with her during the last years often realized that she drank from celestial fountains and in weakness found courage and power among the Hills of God.[72](72/ "tree and pragmatics") In the long night watches when pain was her companion, and the burdens of those about her who claimed her never-failing sympathy pressed heavily upon her loving spirit, she would often light the candle at the head of her bed and read from some author of insight a poem or other glowing page, ponder it for relief, and bring to us at the breakfast table the result of her thought upon it, in a radiant face and a gentle aloofness from everything petty and trivial, which banished mere gossip or small talk and sent us refreshed to our tasks.[73](73/ "tree and pragmatics") She, worn with sleeplessness and anxiety, was yet the inspirer and comforter, and all with a self-effacing sweetness which sought no recognition of what she gave\![74](74/ "tree and pragmatics") Indeed, in her quiet dignity, she made any allusion to, or expressed gratitude for, such obligation difficult.[75](75/ "tree and pragmatics") **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/3/page/2/) - ← previous: [An Appreciation of Nellie N. 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