There is a wonderful tribute to Kate Tracy and "the Adelphai" literary society that loved her so much that they erected this beautify monument to her in 1855. The article can be found at https://missourilife.com/a-memorial-to-a-scholarly-sisterhood/
"Kate was one of the Adelphai's founding members, and she was corresponding secretary for the organization when she died. A few months before that fatal day, on December 22, 1853, Kate read an essay to the membership of the society that was published in The Iris in 1854, shortly before the death of its author. In the essay, Kate discussed her recent tour of America's eastern states and spoke of visiting Niagara Falls and Plymouth Rock. She declared that although she treasured her memories of these places, she preferred to be with her Adelphai "sisters" in Boonville:
'I would rather dwell in the warm light of love, than amidst the cold but gilded splendors of the fashionable world. Mrs. President, pardon my seeming vanity in speaking so much of my personal experience. Let me rather turn to our own little world the Adelphai. With our Society it has been a year of uninterrupted pleasure and profit. Death's wing has cast no shadow over our little band, and though we are scattered to and fro, yet our hearts are bound together by a tie as strong as love, and lasting as life.'
After Kate's death on May 16, 1854, of cholera, the Adelphai published an issue of The Iris dedicated to her memory. The issue began with an engraved portrait of Kate by P. E. Jones. The young woman is shown in a simple patterned dress looking calmly out at the viewer. After seeing this portrait, few will doubt that the round-faced marble figure on the Kate Tracy Monument is Kate herself. The stone effigy even wears the same distinctive dress, with its three-tiered ruffled sleeves, that Kate wears in the engraved portrait."
- Joan Stack
"Kate was one of the Adelphai's founding members, and she was corresponding secretary for the organization when she died. A few months before that fatal day, on December 22, 1853, Kate read an essay to the membership of the society that was published in The Iris in 1854, shortly before the death of its author. In the essay, Kate discussed her recent tour of America's eastern states and spoke of visiting Niagara Falls and Plymouth Rock. She declared that although she treasured her memories of these places, she preferred to be with her Adelphai "sisters" in Boonville:
'I would rather dwell in the warm light of love, than amidst the cold but gilded splendors of the fashionable world. Mrs. President, pardon my seeming vanity in speaking so much of my personal experience. Let me rather turn to our own little world the Adelphai. With our Society it has been a year of uninterrupted pleasure and profit. Death's wing has cast no shadow over our little band, and though we are scattered to and fro, yet our hearts are bound together by a tie as strong as love, and lasting as life.'
After Kate's death on May 16, 1854, of cholera, the Adelphai published an issue of The Iris dedicated to her memory. The issue began with an engraved portrait of Kate by P. E. Jones. The young woman is shown in a simple patterned dress looking calmly out at the viewer. After seeing this portrait, few will doubt that the round-faced marble figure on the Kate Tracy Monument is Kate herself. The stone effigy even wears the same distinctive dress, with its three-tiered ruffled sleeves, that Kate wears in the engraved portrait."
- Joan Stack
There is a wonderful tribute to Kate Tracy and "the Adelphai" literary society that loved her so much that they erected this beautify monument to her in 1855. The article can be found at https://missourilife.com/a-memorial-to-a-scholarly-sisterhood/
"Kate was one of the Adelphai's founding members, and she was corresponding secretary for the organization when she died. A few months before that fatal day, on December 22, 1853, Kate read an essay to the membership of the society that was published in The Iris in 1854, shortly before the death of its author. In the essay, Kate discussed her recent tour of America's eastern states and spoke of visiting Niagara Falls and Plymouth Rock. She declared that although she treasured her memories of these places, she preferred to be with her Adelphai "sisters" in Boonville:
'I would rather dwell in the warm light of love, than amidst the cold but gilded splendors of the fashionable world. Mrs. President, pardon my seeming vanity in speaking so much of my personal experience. Let me rather turn to our own little world the Adelphai. With our Society it has been a year of uninterrupted pleasure and profit. Death's wing has cast no shadow over our little band, and though we are scattered to and fro, yet our hearts are bound together by a tie as strong as love, and lasting as life.'
After Kate's death on May 16, 1854, of cholera, the Adelphai published an issue of The Iris dedicated to her memory. The issue began with an engraved portrait of Kate by P. E. Jones. The young woman is shown in a simple patterned dress looking calmly out at the viewer. After seeing this portrait, few will doubt that the round-faced marble figure on the Kate Tracy Monument is Kate herself. The stone effigy even wears the same distinctive dress, with its three-tiered ruffled sleeves, that Kate wears in the engraved portrait."
- Joan Stack
"Kate was one of the Adelphai's founding members, and she was corresponding secretary for the organization when she died. A few months before that fatal day, on December 22, 1853, Kate read an essay to the membership of the society that was published in The Iris in 1854, shortly before the death of its author. In the essay, Kate discussed her recent tour of America's eastern states and spoke of visiting Niagara Falls and Plymouth Rock. She declared that although she treasured her memories of these places, she preferred to be with her Adelphai "sisters" in Boonville:
'I would rather dwell in the warm light of love, than amidst the cold but gilded splendors of the fashionable world. Mrs. President, pardon my seeming vanity in speaking so much of my personal experience. Let me rather turn to our own little world the Adelphai. With our Society it has been a year of uninterrupted pleasure and profit. Death's wing has cast no shadow over our little band, and though we are scattered to and fro, yet our hearts are bound together by a tie as strong as love, and lasting as life.'
After Kate's death on May 16, 1854, of cholera, the Adelphai published an issue of The Iris dedicated to her memory. The issue began with an engraved portrait of Kate by P. E. Jones. The young woman is shown in a simple patterned dress looking calmly out at the viewer. After seeing this portrait, few will doubt that the round-faced marble figure on the Kate Tracy Monument is Kate herself. The stone effigy even wears the same distinctive dress, with its three-tiered ruffled sleeves, that Kate wears in the engraved portrait."
- Joan Stack
Inscription
Front of Monument:
"Here lies our sister Kate
Here Love her sacred vigil keeps
O'er dust that in long silence sleeps.
But Faith looks up with eager eyes
To meet her spirit in the skies."
Back of Monument:
"Erected by the Adelphai
In Memory of
Kate
Only daughter of
Joshua L. and Catherine G. Tracy
Who died May 16th A.D. 1854
Aged 17 years"
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