Edith Robbins Daniel

This brief personal history was written in 1944 by Edith, one of the five Robbins daughters. She describes her family, life, and career over many years of public service.

Father was of distinguished Revolutionary ancestry from Maine. Andrew B. Robbins was a very small boy when his father brought his family West and settled in Anoka, in 1853. Mother’s people were early settlers in New York and Ohio. They were prominent as lawyers, physicians and educators. Among them were Supreme Court Judges in Ohio and New York. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Mother, Adelaide Walker, was a student at Baldwin. She left the University to go with her mother and sister and her stepfather to serve during the war in Tripler General Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. At the close of the Civil War she came with her mother’s family to old St. Anthony. Father also came to St. Anthony at the close service with the 8th Regiment, Minnesota Volunteers. Mother and her sister, Helen Walker, were teachers in the Minneapolis schools.

Soon the handsome young Station Agent Andrew and the beautiful young school teacher Adelaide began to skate hand in hand on the Mississippi River and to look at each other more than at the minister in Church. After their marriage, they lived in St. Anthony, then Minneapolis, and pioneered at Willmar. They built their permanent home on a lovely hill on the Lake in the Village father had platted and bore Here in Robbinsdale his family, including five young daughters, enjoyed the blessings of a perfect home, with space indoors and out for gracious living. He and mother were tireless and lifelong planters of trees and gardens. Thousands of splendid trees and many hardy gardens are their worthy monuments. All the daughters became university graduates, with a few Masters Degrees sprinkled in. I was one of these graduates.

I taught Latin, Mathematics, and English in Minneapolis High Schools, and served as Grade School Principal and as High School Principal in other places until my marriage in 1907. I have had the wonderful experience of writing children’s songs, and am still doing this work. These songs were published in the Music Education Series of Ginn and Company. They are very widely used and hearing children sing them in different parts of the country has brought me great joy. And I am still writing material for Greeting cards. I have also had the fun of writing the Children’s Corner for Newspapers.

I am completing 24 years of service as District Clerk of a very large School District. You know of course that a person who serves too long as a School Board member is never the same again. I have had the honor and pleasure of serving on Charter Commissions on Appraisal Boards and many others. In World War One, while my sister Amy was serving in France, I had given to me a splendid opportunity for service. I directed the making of many hundreds of garments to send to the War sufferers in France and other countries. I had splendid groups of women working almost every day for many months.

My latest venture as a teacher was working in the Adult Education Department. In this work I wrote also material for Adult Beginners in English. 1935 and 1936. I enjoyed the work we did at the University. I still like to listen in around the old place.

At times in the past I have been a member of the College Women’s Club, Business Womens Club, the DAR, the PTA, Womans Relief Corps, Pi Beta Phi, and various Study Clubs and Service Clubs. I am an Honorary Member of the Tourist Club. I am a mom. I have one daughter Helen Mary. Her Faith, courage, and efficiency are a joy to me. We are members of the Robbinsdale Congregational Church.

At our Commencement I won special distinction, and in a subject in which I had had no training or experience, and for which I had no credits. The subject of hand-holding! I held the hand of nearly every man in the Class. Please do not remind anyone that I was the Gypsy Fortune Teller.

-EDITH ROBBINS DANIEL-
Robbinsdale
Minnesota
June 1944