Balhinch Female Seminary - Montgomery InGenWeb Project

The Balhinch Female Seminary has just closed the first year of a prosperous and encouraging work. Commencement exercises were held last evening at the Academy of Music. A brilliant and fashionable audience was in attendance. The six young ladies of the graduating class occupied the stage, surrounded by a wilderness of roses – from Fred Bandle’s conservatory in Crawfordsville. The trustees of the school, Col. John Lewallen, Capt. Dick Hall and Major Weir were seated on an elevated platform at the rear of the stage together with the following distinguished guests: Hon. Wm. Campbell of Kirkpatrick; Warfel of Ladoga Leader; Attorney-General Ben Swank of Bristle Ridge and Hon. Peter Flynn of Crawfordsville. The fair young graduates, adorned in fairy wonders of fabrics, looked like miracles of beauty. In keeping with the old foolish custom, the exercises opened with prayer. Then followed a vocal chorus by the trustees and distinguished guests named above, entitled, We Wont Go Home Till Morning, after which came a lively tune from the celebrated Offiel string band. The first essay of the evening was entitled, The Marble Gods of Ancient Greece by Miss Sapphire DeHall. She was clad in a rich trained gown of white satin edged on the skirt with ermine; she wore magnificent Rocky Mountain diamonds and carried a Mammoth Bouquet of otto of Alamo roses. Miss DeHall held the audience spellbound for one hour. She thought there was something beautiful in pantheistic ideas. “Where,” said she, is Apolla, Mars, Diana, Calipoe and all those lovely creatures worshiped by the Greeks in the bright days of Pheidias in these ideal beauties were centered all that was great and grand. O why have they been excluded from the world?

Miss Onyx Lewellan came next. She was gowned in a most beautiful color; yellow crepe de chine; her diamond ear “bobs” were superb. She carried a bouquet of Ambrosial swamp lilies from the silvian parks of Yountsville. The title of her essay was Prehistoric Creatures. She described the nature and habits of the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, megalosaurs, and other old timers.

“Sabbath School Lessons,” was the title of Miss Gloxinia Stumpington’s essay. Gloxinia was the lioness of the evening. She wore a charming red gown of mousseline de sole, trimmed with lilacs and feathers. A necklace of sparkling beads encircled her alabaster throat, while her raven hair was adorned with pink plumes. She would have excited the envy of a queen – a Feejee queen. Miss Stumpington said that a law should be passed compelling all young men to attend Sunday school. She advised everybody to read the teachings of that good and wise king, Solomon. There was a great lesson to be learned from Mary’s Little Lamb if folks would study it closely. She railed loud and long against wickedness and the gaudy trappings of fashion.

She was followed by Miss Tulip O’Keller, who wore an exquisite gown of pea green silk looped and garlanded with Jimtown jimpson buds. Constancy and flowers were the only jewels she wore. Her subject was, “The critic.” Said she: The critic looms up in all walks of life. Like Banquo’s ghost he will not down. He is ubiquitous and therefore abasolutely unescapable. He sneers at everything; he even vulgarizes the poetry of life and rudely drags it down from the roseate glory of the glimmering Pleiades where eour loving faith places it, to the mire and filth of the street. She then proceded to read a lyric poem of 300 verses dedicated to The Vernal Season.

Miss eliotrope DeLaWeir recited, “The Old Oaken Bucket, Queen of the May and how big was Alexander, Pa? Miss Heliotrope was becomingly attired in blue satin corsage and skirt of handsome embroidered green tuile, which was all aglow with the gleams of golden spangles. A wreath of old fashioned hollyhocks nestled in her horse chesnut hair.

The valedictorian of the class of Miss Diamond LaZellers. She looked very fair in white India(na) silk and lace.  Her jeweled fingers blazed like golden fire. Her flowers were Waynetown forget me nots, and her amber colored curls reached to her shoulders. The subject of Miss LaZeller’s address was Battles of Life. Below we give the concluding paragraphs of her speech:

“And now, school mates, we must, as Balhinch’s noble daughters, show the world that we are somebody. We have a mission before us. We must champion the sacred cause of womanhood. We must place woman on a higher level – on a level with those things in trousers. We must have our rights. Our ambitions must rise above washing dishes, patching patns, etc. Such menial labor should be done by plebeian maids. Life’s work is before us. The battlefield is wide. Let our lives be devoted to grand deeds so that when we pass the rubicon of death to our home beyond the fixed star, we may become full-fledged birds of paradise. There we will meet and bathe our weary wings in the river that flows eternally with milk and honey. “ (Tremendous applause.”  Taking a fresh bite of chewing gun, she continued “School mates, what, O what is more delicious than ice cream and cake. Yells, waving of paraols and fans. A report has been started by some penurious scoundrel that ice cream contains microbes. If there is any young man foolish enough to believe that lie, he should be ostracized.  Cries of bravo, bravo.  He should be banished from human society.  One Mrs. Oxephone a seet voiced warbler of Boston, favored the audience with a new solo, “Little Annie Rooney” which brought out the fire engine and caused a stampede in the audience. The songstress escaped through a trap door covered with glory and eggs. When order was restored, Col. John Leweallen stepped forward and as the graduates arose presented each one with her diploma. The Col. then addressed them as follows: I cannot utter to you what I would. I have not the gift of gab. You are a credit to Balhinch. I have been electrified by your eloquence. It seems like I have been lying tonight in a green field with the bees and wasps humming about me and the larks lifting their hymns to the blue canopy of heaven. When I contemplate the extraordinary inexplicablesness of your ponderous intellects I am filled with unbounded admiration. Your minds soar to incomprehensible distances above this suiunary sphere. Let ‘em keep on soaring till they can’t soar any soarer. Let you thoughts go skylarking among the scudding asteroids and let your knowledge shine athwart the land. When the Col. finished speaking there was not a dry mouth in the house. After Rev. Abe Snyder pronounced the benediction the fife and drums struck up Virginia Reele, which awoke the distinguished guests and they began looking up partners for the dance. Several hours were tripped away, after which everybody wended his way to the restaurant known as the Epteurian Palace where the remainder of the night was spent discoursing betwixt Elysian bites. The delicacies consisted of giner ale, hard boiled eggs, corn, bread, sorgum molasses, clabber, cheese and crackers, fried liver and dried peach pie. The occasion will ever be remembered as a big bright spot on life’s memory.  NOTES:  Balhinch can put on as much style as Crawfordsville. A few effeminate sap heads from Wabash college bored the fair graduates considerably. During Col. Lewallen’s speech, the distinguished guests on the platform were sound asleep. The programmes were done at the Bugle office. They wereprinted on brown paper muslin and were far ahead of anything ever printed in Crawfordsville.

OH MY this is nuts.  Was there ever a Balhinch Women’s Institute?  Most of the names ring true – John Lewellen existed; Ben Swank etc.  hmmm but overall it sounds like a spoof.