Guilford College - Quaker Yearbook (Greensboro, NC)

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TO MARY MENDENHALL HOBBS THIS VOLUME OF THE QUAKER IS DEDICATED AS A TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR HER LOYAL INTEREST IN GUILFORD

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MARY MENDENHALL HOBBS

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THE Q.UA.]PC] R Mary Mendenhall Hobbs There is not in all literature a more beautiful tribute to an exemplary life and character than the half dozen words spoken of a woman for an act that has made her name a gracious memorial, She hath done what she could. ' And no words of less import than these could be used to set forth the character and work of the subject of this sketch — Mary Mendenhall Hobbs. Every community that is so fortunate as to claim for its own one of these rare souls who has the ability to perform a task and the heart to pursue it is indeed blessed above all neighbor- hoods. What New Garden community and Guilford College owe to Mrs. Hobbs cannot be told in words. Mary Mendenhall Hobbs, oldest daughter of Dr. Nereus Mendenhall and Orianna Wilson Mendenhall, was born at Jamestown, North Caro- lina, in 1852. Her father. Dr. Mendenhall, was one of Guilford County ' s great men and a distinguished citizen of the State: her mother a woman of excellent parts and rare culture. From them and from her early training under their immediate supervision Mrs. Hobbs received those traits of gentle firmness and broad sympathies so characteristic of her in all her work. Educated in the best schools of the time, she felt herself drawn to- ward the profession of teaching, and entered upon her duties at New Garden Boarding School in 1877 as instructor in Latin and History, where she continued for three years. In 1880 she was married to Lewis Lyndon Hobbs, who was at that time principal of the school. From that day she, with Dr. Hobbs, has devoted her life to the great task of education and service not only for the school, college, and community, but also for a widely extended field as the call from time to time has come to her. John Ruskin somewhere calls to our mind the ancient habit of strew- ing flowers before those whom we think most happy, in order to de- ceive them into the hope that hapiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet. He continues by saying that the path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers, but that they rise behind her steps. This is as it should be, and thus it is with Mrs. Hobbs. Particularly in this regard is the work that she has done and the interest she has taken in the education of the young women of the State. In 1889 Mrs. Hobbs became actively interested in the provision of greater educational facil-