Bio of HULET, Harriet Granger (Mrs. Thomas B. WALKER) (b.1841), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical

MRS. THOMAS B. WALKER (Harriet Granger Hulet Walker)-Vol III, pg 14-18
Mrs. Thomas B. Walker was born in Brunswick, Medina county, Ohio, on September
10, 1841, and is a daughter of Fletcher and Fannie (Granger) Hulet, who were
natives of Massachusetts and descended from good old English stock. Her paternal
grandfather, John Hulet, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war and fought in
the battle of Bunker Hill; and his father, also named John Hulet, was a zaealous
patron of Methodism and is said to have built the first Methodist Episcopal
church edifice erected in Massachusetts.
When Harriet Granger Hulet (now Mrs. Walker) was six years old, her parents
moved to Berea, Ohio, in order to secure for their children the educational
advantages offered by Baldwin University. There their daughter Harriet grew to
womanhood, remaining in her father's household until her marriage, and
cultivating her natural gifts for vocal and instrumental music and her love of
languages, through which she became mistress of the Latin, the Greek and the
German tongues. She was also a frequent contributor to periodicals, and her
early ambition was to write a famous book. Her ambition in this direction has
never been realized, but her literary tastes and ability have found vital and
fruitful expression in lectures and addresses in behalf of her numerous
philanthropies.
In 1856 Miss Hulet became acquainted with Mr. Walker. They were in school
together, and later, when Mr. Walker was employed as traveling salesman, the
daughter was her father's bookkeeper and secretary, and so there was ample
oppor­tunity for frequent and continued intercourse between the young couple.
Their acquaintance ripened into a more tender feeling, and on November 19, 1863,
after an engagement lasting five years, they were married in her home city of
Berea, Ohio. Mr. Walker then came on to St. Anthony and prepared the way for
establish­ing a home here, after which he sent for his bride. Six years later he
built a new residence in Minneapolis, at Ninth street and First avenue South,
which was then so far up and out of town that he felt obliged to keep a horse
for transporta­tion between the city and his home.
During the first twelve years of her married life Mrs. Walker devoted her
energies to her growing family and gave little time to any work outside her
home. Her husband was engaged in surveying for the government and the new
railroads planned for this region, and was absent from home for months at a
time. Their means were limited, too, and the letters that passed between them
reached their destinations with difficulty. In addition to her burdens, of
privations and responsi­bilities, the constant danger of Indian outbreaks in the
region where her husband was working gave Mrs. Walker a heavy and continual
weight of uneasiness to bear. But she accepted her lot with fortitude and
cheerfulness, and performed her every duty with fidelity.
About the end of the period mentioned above, Mrs. Walker began to observe
closely the condition of the poor and the oppressed, and to engage in active
work for their relief and betterment. Since then her philanthropies have been so
numer­ous, far-reaching and voluminous, that only a brief summary of them can be
given here. She has founded benevolent and helpful institutions and established
them on permanent bases, investing considerable sums of money in their
maintenance and development. These institutions annually give succor in sickness
and misfortune to hundreds of men, women and children, and do it in the quiet
and unostentatious way which true benevolence always seeks to follow.
Mrs. Walker was a member of the first organization of the Women's Christian
Association of Minneapolis, which at the time of its inception was given the
care of all the poor of the community. A few years later she joined with other
ladies in organizing and managing the Sisterhood of Bethany, an association for
the care of erring women and their infant children, which has become a wonderful
power for good throughout the whole northwest. She has served as its secretary
or president since its organization forty-four years ago. Out of this
institution grew the Northwestern Hospital Association, which was organized to
care for the worthy poor who are 111. Mrs. Walker has been its president from
the beginning of its history. The association began operations without a dollar
in cash or credit. Its hospital was started in a poorly furnished house, and its
facilities were meager, primitive and of very limited utility. Today this
hospital is fully equipped and skill­fully conducted, it has capacity for one
hundred patients and carries on a training school for nurses with thirty pupils.
The buildings are now free of debt and the association has an endowment fund of
forty thousand dollars. Since 1901 the hospital has been open for men as well as
women. The success and growth of this institution alone is sufficient to fix
Mrs. Walker's fame as a lady of great business ability and strong devotion to
the service of her fellow beings who are in need.
Other philanthropies with which this noble woman has been actively connected are
the Woman's Christian Union, the Newsboys' Home, the Kindergarten Association
and the Children's Home, the last named being an outgrowth of the Sister­hood of
Bethany. In her temperance work she conducted meetings in her church and
published the data she gathered in tracts. This and her lecture on the Keeley
cure for inebriates, which she read at the World's Temperance conference at the
Columbian Exposition, have been widely copied and distributed in this country
and many others. Her philanthropic work is done systematically. She has regular
office hours and employs a stenographer to assist her.
One of the most beneficial results of Mrs. Walker's great public spirit and
intense devotion to the wants of the needy, especially of her own sex, is the
establishment of police matronship in connection with the city government of
Minne­apolis. Through investigations in the eastern cities she became fully
convinced years ago that all women prisoners in the custody of the police ought
to be under the care of a woman. Great opposition was encountered to the
movement for this beneficent reform when she started it, but she was not to be
called off or frowned down, either by the police authorities or by other
Christian workers who did not approve of the suggestion. She kept warm in the
pursuit of her purpose, and through her persistent and well directed efforts the
office was. established. The police could not but know her singleness of desire
and loftiness of aim in the matter, for she had long been on call at their
headquarters at any time of the day or night for the assistance of young women
and girls.
In emergencies, Mrs. Walker acts promptly and wisely. When the terrible cyclone
swept over Sauk Rapids with such disastrous results and so much loss of life,
she received notice from the mayor's office at ten o'clock one morning that
there was urgent need of more nurses in the stricken territory. At three o'clock
that afternoon she went to the front with twelve nurses, all but one or two from
the training school of the Northwestern Hospital. She remained at the place of
the dreadful visitation two weeks, taking charge of one of the hospitals, and
several of the nurses remained two and some three months, doing all they could
to relieve the suffering.
It is not to be supposed that because of this generous lady's attention to
out­siders who have needed her help she has neglected her home or its duties.
She has been a close and sympathetic companion of her husband in all his
undertakings, and she reared her eight children to honorable manhood and
womanhood. In fact, if her work outside of her own household has had any effect
on her conduct within it, it has only intensified her devotion to her home and
its duties and made her more zealous and diligent in attending to their
requirements. She has given Minneapolis one of the noblest and loftiest examples
of Christian womanhood and motherhood it has ever had, and in all sections of
the city "her works praise her in the gates."