Bio of ROBBINS, Edith, Hennepin Co., MN ========================================================================= USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is obtained from the contributor of the file. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. If you have found this file through a source other than the MNArchives Table Of Contents you can find other Minnesota related Archives at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/mn/mnfiles.htm Please note the county and type of file at the top of this page to find the submitter information or other files for this county. FileFormat by Terri--MNArchives Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Laura Pruden Submitted: June 2003 ========================================================================= Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ======================================================== 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 ======================================================== Vol III, pg 784-785 EDITH ROBBINS The will of Andrew B. Robbins made his wife and his daughter, Edith Robbins, Joint executrices of his estate. This action was in recognition of the long-time coopera­tion of his life partner, and the active participation for many years in his real estate and allied interests, of his eldest daughter, Edith Robbins, whose work in carrying forward plans for developing the beautiful suburb which bears her father's name, along lines he approved, has fully justified his faith. She is helping the children of her father's customers of the early '90s to build substantial homes in the shade of his trees, which she has cared for and guarded through all the intervening years. Edith Robbins' preparatory schooling was received at Macalester and Carleton Colleges, while her academic and graduate work was carried on at the University of Minnesota, where she took her Bachelor of Science degree in 1894, completing the work for Master of Arts in 1895-6. She also became a pianist of marked ability under the tutelage of Carl V. Lachmond, subsequently director of the Scharwenka Conserva­tory of Music in New York city. She has been an active worker in the Tourist Club of Minneapolis, of which she has been secretary and chairman of various committees and a prominent member of the Thursday Musical. After her graduation she spent some time traveling in the British isles and on the Continent with her mother. For several years Edith Robbins taught in the various grades of the public school of Robbinsdale. It was here that the writing of those incomparable little verses for children, now recognized from coast to coast, began as "nature studies" and "memory gems" for her pupils. Verses for which critics from Boston to California acclaim her "The foremost writer of children's verses in America today." For the little boy's point of view Edith Robbins declares herself indebted to her beloved nephew, Louis Robbins Gillette, son of her sister, Adelaide, Mrs. Ralph P. Gillette. And later for her little girl's thoughts to her small daughter, Helen Mary Robbins. Her teaching field soon broadened and she became principal of the Madelia high school, from which she returned to take a position in the East Minneapolis high school, from which she was transferred to Central high school, holding positions in these schools until her marriage in 1907. This teaching experience, together with a practical business career, have preeminently fitted her for the position of school director, where she has served as clerk of Independent School District 24 in Robbinsdale for a three year term, having been reelected July 21, 1923, for another three years, by the largest vote ever polled in Robbinsdale for school director. One of Edith Robbins' most notable achievements was the extraordinary work she did during the war, when under her personal supervision several thousand garments were made from dozens of bolts of new materials donated for the purpose, for all of which Edith Robbins either cut or directed the cutting and making. Her workrooms included the T. B. Walker offices, No. 807 Hennepin avenue on "heatless Mondays," the Charles Pillsbury residence and other places, where she kept scores of sewing machines supplied with material and volunteer workers. All these garments were sent parcel post direct to the scenes of need in France and Belgium. Letters are still coming from the children whose way was made less hard by these timely gifts. In 1920 Ginn and Company of Boston, publishers of school books, with the assist­ance of Thaddeus Giddings, director of the Department of Public School Music in Minneapolis, "discovered" Edith Robbins, through some of her published verses and se­cured her cooperation as contributor and adviser on the publication of a series of school music readers, of which four volumes are already in use in Minneapolis and other cities. Pursuant to this work Edith Robbins and her little daughter, Helen Mary, spent last summer in Boston, writing and conferring on the publication. Several hun­dred songs with words by Edith Robbins under her own and four family nom de plumes appear in the series. Edith Robbins and her sister, Amy Robbins Ware, own and operate the Robbinsdale Hy-Way Tea House, in addition to their regular real estate, insurance and loan business, as The Andrew B. Robbins' Estate, and The Robbinsdale Insurance and Loan Agency, at No. 4223 Crystal Lake avenue. Over this shining pavement known as the Jefferson Highway, more than ten thousand cars have passed in a single day-a pave­ment which Mrs. Robbins declares must be underlaid with a firm foundation of the rubbers her children left stuck in the mud of the ofttimes impassable Crystal Lake road of their school days. So the many interests and activities fill the days to overflowing with new civic and personal problems, yet in the midst of the busiest day Edith Robbins, with the delighted cooperation of her little daughter, Helen Mary, still finds time to set down those sympathetic, humorous and inspirational little gems for child thought, which will bring joy to generations of children in future years.