Introduction

Biography

Marie was the daugh­ter of Fan­nie H. Bur­ridge Rad­cliffe, and wife of min­is­ter Tho­mas Da­ve­nal But­ler.

When she was two years old, her fa­mi­ly moved to Cu­ya­ho­ga Falls, Ohio. It was there that, at age 13, Ma­rie wrote one of her first poe­ms, The Fall­ing Leaf, which was pub­lished in its orig­in­al form ma­ny years af­ter­wards, in the Christ­ian Stand­ard.

In 1853, her par­ents moved to Wheel­ing, Vir­gin­ia (now West Vir­gin­ia), where her fa­ther died in a cho­le­ra epi­de­mic not long aft­er.

Her mo­ther then op­ened a school for in­struct­ion in mu­sic, draw­ing and em­broid­ery, and Ma­rie be­came her as­sist­ant.

While in Wheel­ing, Ma­rie won first prize at the coun­ty fair for a ser­ies of pen­cil sketch­es.

In 1857, Mrs. Rad­cliffe ac­cept­ed a gov­er­ness po­si­tion at a pri­vate board­ing school in Browns­bo­ro, Ken­tuc­ky, with Ma­rie again serv­ing as her as­sist­ant.

In Browns­bo­ro, Marie’s mo­ther mar­ried to Dea­con John S. Chris­to­pher, of Lou­is­ville, Ken­tuc­ky, and soon af­ter, Marie en­tered the Lou­is­ville Fe­male High School to fin­ish her edu­ca­tion.

Marie con­trib­ut­ed ma­ny po­ems to the Christ­ian Stand­ard and to the New York In­de­pen­dent.

By 1876, Ma­rie was liv­ing in De­troit, Mi­chi­gan. She was ac­tive in the Wo­men’s Chris­tian Tem­per­ance Un­ion in her lat­er years.

Works

• Riverside, 1872
• Grandma’s Pa­tience
• Duke Chris­to­pher (ed­it­or; her mo­ther was au­thor)
• Bartholet Mi­lon (ed­it­or; her mo­ther was au­thor)