The Girl Who Has Helped To Straighten Twisted Lives

The villain had received his just deserts, but he, or rather she, was smiling with satisfaction. Her play, for Katharine was the author as well as a principal actor, had been a great success. Nobody had forgotten a line, and, in addition, the scenery had added a realistic setting. Who would ever have dreamed that the deep forest and bold cliffs were only boughs cut from the shrubbery, and boxes covered with mother’s old gray shawl?

The back parlor of the Davis home was crowded with a friendly audience of girls and boys and a few mothers and fathers. This attendance was very gratifying to Katharine, for it assured her that the receipts would be large. With them she intended to provide a bountiful Thanksgiving dinner for a good woman who was having difficulty in supporting her crippled grandson.

Little did this merry eleven-year-old girl think that the work of helping others, begun in such a small way that night, was the work that she was to choose for her own later on. When she grew up she became a sociologist. This is simply a long word for a person who thinks, studies, plans, and works to help people lead happier, healthier, and better lives.

Katharine Bement Davis was born in Buffalo, New York, January 15, 1860. Within a short time the family moved to Dunkirk, New York. In the happy childhood days spent in this town on Lake Erie, there was no hint of the sorrow of life which Katharine was to cheer in later years.

Besides four younger sisters and brothers for playmates, Kitty, as she was called, had no end of school chums. They were always welcome at her home, for the Davis house was a sort of center of good times for the neighborhood. In the winter the children acted plays in the house; in the summer time they played Indian in the backyard, or built houses of kindling wood.

Kitty was usually chief builder, because she loved to watch something grow under her hands. Making things was always such a joy to her that years later, when she had charge of the Bedford Reformatory, she taught her girls how to do all sorts of useful tasks. They even laid the concrete walks between the buildings.

This little Lake Erie girl had as great an appetite for finding out how other people did things as for doing them herself. Once when a friend of the family took her for a drive, she inquired the name and use of every part of the carriage. By the time they reached home, her companion felt as if he had been put through a severe examination; but Katharine knew all about the carriage. This habit of going to the very bottom of things was to be of great use to a woman who was to have hard problems to settle in her public life.

Kitty Davis was very fond of reading. Her sisters and brothers often found her deeply absorbed in a book. Some of Scott’s and Dickens’ novels were among the book friends that she made at eleven and twelve years of age.

Little Katharine Davis liked to create with her mind as well as with her hands. When she was eleven years old, she had thought out tunes for a number of hymns. She enjoyed her music lessons, especially the part which showed her how music is made. The grown-up Katharine Davis realized that music helps people to forget their troubles and to think better thoughts. For this reason, she made sure that her girls at the reformatory should not only hear good music but should sing it themselves in their own glee club.

In the Davis family lived Grandmother Bement, a woman who had always had a hand in any new movement to make the world better. Katharine and the other children loved to hear her tell about the escape of slaves by means of the underground railroad, the fight against drink, and the struggle for rights for women. It was not strange that the granddaughter of such a woman should have a desire to be of service to the world.

The years flew on until Katharine Davis was ready for college. Business reverses had come to Mr. Davis, and he told his daughter that he could not pay her expenses.

“Never mind,” answered Katharine, “I will earn them myself.”

She kept her word. Studying by herself while she was teaching science in the Dunkirk High School, Katharine Davis completed two years of college work. She then entered Vassar College as a junior. She successfully passed the many special examinations that it was necessary for her to take. Upon the completion of two years’ work at college Katharine Davis was graduated with honors.

For a number of years, Miss Davis spent her time, first, in teaching; then, in settlement work; and later, in further study. After three years of graduate work, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with honors, was conferred upon her by the University of Chicago. Thus she was ably prepared to enter the field of social service.

When it was announced that a new reformatory for women was to be opened at Bedford, New York, Dr. Davis was immediately interested. She thought that there she might be able to carry out her ideas for helping girls who had not had a pleasant home and wise parents like her own.

Dr. Davis received the appointment as superintendent of this reformatory, and set about getting acquainted with her girls. She believed that many of these lives that had been started in the wrong way might turn out happily, if some one took the trouble to study them.

Dr. Davis endeavored really to know the girls at Bedford. She was vitally interested in their welfare and did everything that she could to help them. She spent many successful years as superintendent of this reformatory.

Dr. Davis’ ability to grasp a situation and meet it was clearly demonstrated at the time of the Messina earthquake. She was in Sicily when the disaster occurred, and immediately set about to aid the sufferers. Her work of rehabilitating the earthquake victims was so important that it won for her a Red Cross Medal, presented by President Taft.

When Dr. Davis took charge of all the prisons in the city of New York, as Commissioner of Correction, she had another opportunity for continuing her wonderful work. Katharine Bement Davis has served on a number of commissions formed for the purpose of social betterment. Many persons who desire to learn the best ways of working for humanity go to her for advice. Because of the little girl who carried into later life her joy of working and her habit of investigating things, many twisted lives have been straightened.