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The Blue Book of Iowa Women A History of Contemporary Women

Compiled by Winona Evans Reeves, 1914.

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MRS. MATILDA A. VON SCHMIDT ARP

Matilda Anna von Schmidt is the daughter of John and Anna Elizabeth Lenz von Schmidt, both of whom were born in Germany and met for the first time on board the ship which brought them to America. She attended school until sixteen years of age when her father died, leaving her mother with eight children.  She began to help her mother in the support of the family by conducting a millinery store, and the brave spirit of the girl was manifested in the success of the undertaking.  On Oct. 31, 1884, she was married to Mr. Arp in Denison.  Two children have been born to them, Myrtle Wilhelmina, the wife of Dr. H. T. Kennedy, of Pierre, S. D.  She is a graduate of the Chicago Musical College and took post-graduate work in Boston.  Esther Anna, the second daughter, is a student at the State University of South Dakota.  Mrs. Arp has always been an active worker in the church and Sunday school, and is a warm advocate of study classes and clubs for women.  When she moved to Sioux City in 1910 she found no Woman's Club.  She advocated its organization for several months and then invited a few women to a parlor meeting at her home from which the Sioux City Women's Club was organized on Nov. 25, 1911, having in its membership some of the brightest women in that city.  Mrs. Arp is a member of the Equal Suffrage Club and an earnest advocate of its principles.  Her life has been saddened by the tragic death of her brother, the Rev. Lewis J. Schmidt, a man of great ability and usefulness in the world.  She has two brothers, Charles and John Schmidt, living in Manning, Iowa, and a sister, Mrs. Minnie Behrens, living in South Dakota.
 

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