Biography of 	WALDO, Eveline A., Brooklyn, NY., then Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by 	Mike Miller July 1998

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Waldo, Eveline Almita, educator and philanthropist; daughter of James
Curtis and Margaret Mary (Woods) Waldo; born at Brooklyn, N. Y., Sept. 
27, 1858; died at New Orleans, La., Feb. 3, 1913; educated at the 
Dominican convent, the Technical Music school of Glens Falls, N. Y., 
with courses at the University of Chicago and, later, at Tulane 
university; she was one of the foremost educational workers in the 
country and a recognized authority upon kindergarten and kindergarten 
teachers' training; her life work was, however, the great philanthropic 
endeavor which she began in 1889, and from that year until her death 
the story of her life is the history of the St. Margaret's Daughters, 
which is, through the indulgences originally bestowed by Pope Leo XIII 
and amplified and extended through Pope Pius X, the most privileged 
organization of Catholic lay women in the world.  From the first circle 
organized by Miss Waldo, and in less than 25 years, the order has 
spread throughout the Catholic world and there is no field of 
charitable, benevolent or eleemosynary endeavor that has not felt the 
work and assistance of the St. Margaret's Daughters.  Incident to the 
work of the order, Miss Waldo, with her mother, organized and 
maintained the "All Souls' Free Night School for working Boys and 
Girls,'' which was the first nonsectarian night school for working boys 
and girls in the United States. Thousands of successful men and women 
owe their education and training in bookkeeping, stenography and 
technical work to this school.  Miss Waldo also formed many circles of 
the order to conduct settlement  work among the very poor.  She had 
been president of the great order since its foundation and in 1900 was 
elected president for life.  In pronouncing her funeral eulogy, 
Archhishop Blenk said of Miss Waldo and her work: "I remember, and I 
shall remember until I, too, and laid to rest among the saints, I hope, 
how the aged Pontiff at the Vatican listened to my description of the 
work founded and carried on by Miss Eveline Waldo.  There was joy 
beaming from the eyes of the sovereign pontiff and I saw that he would
 give anything to show how he approved of it and I saw how the vicar of 
Christ rejoiced at hearing of the good done by one of his children, and 
the firm stand taken by her by the side of Jesus Christ.  I could not 
but reflect then how much this generous Christlike effort of hers 
appealed to God, when it had so appealed to his vicar.  When I asked 
that he endow the order with certain favors and privileges, he 
exclaimed:  'Most certainly will I do so with all my heart.'  It is 
against the etiquette of the Vatican to ask the Pope to write out such 
documents, but when he took the pen in his hand I saw that his was a 
gift that was voluntarily given, and in token of the resemblance to 
Jesus Christ of the work in its compassion for the poor that he had 
blessed it.  Like his Divine Master, the holy father's heart swelled 
with pride at seeing that compassion for the poor."


Source:  Louisiana:  Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, 
Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 
584-585.  Edited by Alcee Fortier, Lit.D.  Published in 1914, by 
Century Historical Association.