Mary Louise Gilmore

Mary Louise Gilmore Dead

Was Formerly Well Known in the City of Omaha

Chicago papers announced the death on Saturday last, in that city of Miss Mary Louise Gilmore at the advanced age of 77 years. This event should have a more than passing interest to residents of Omaha, whose recollections go back to the period of Nebraska’s territorial history, from 1854 to 1887, during all of which time the Gilmore family was an influential factor in the official and social life of this city.

Addison R. Gilmore was the first receiver of the land office located in Omaha. He came here from Illinois as the appointee of President Franklin Pierce and was an ardent adherent to the Douglas democracy of that day. Stopping first at Bellevue with Governor Hurt, Judge Fenner Ferguson and other officials, he removed to Omaha when it became the territorial capital and where he died, after the expiration of his term of service, about the year 1868. He was a man of marked characteristics, with a full sense of personal honor and independence, and was a resolute defender and practicer of honesty and rectitude in public office. The name is still well remembered here and in Sarpy county where it is preserved by Gilmore station on the Union Pacific railroad.

Mary Louise, the elder of his two daughters, was well known, and is affectionately remembered as the first principal of Brownell hall while that institution was located at Saratoga. Going later to Chicago with the family, she took a position in the post office there, and was retained in service under all charges of administration, to the end of her long life. This exceptional tenure was due to the high intelligence, rare fidelity and special aptitude displayed in the work assigned her. In a long, patient, self-sacrificing life given far more to the welfare of others than to her own, in the sincerity and devotedness of her home life and in her Christian character, she came near to the ideal of pure and noble womanhood. She was an active and assiduous member of the Protestant Episcopal church. Besides that, her life, her teachings and her example would have been in themselves a creed to believe in to inspire and to exalt regardless of articles of faith. Her many friends in Omaha and her pupils scattered throughout the state, now better wives and better mothers because of the precepts and influence of their teacher in Brownell hall, will cherish her memory with peculiar regard.

From the Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Douglas Co., Nebraska), dated April 4, 1906