Julia A. Ames (October 14, 1861 - December 12, 1891) was an American journalist, editor and temperance reformer. She served as associate editor of the Woman's Temperance Publishing Association's Union Signal. Ames died in 1891 at the age of 30. The year after her death, the journalist and spiritualist W. T. Stead published automatic writing which was said to have been sent by Ames to her friend. Stead also created "Julie's Bureau" to allow others to communicate with the dead.
Early years and education
Julia A. (nickname, "Yolande") Ames was born near Odell, Illinois, 14 October 1861. She was the daughter of Isaac Ames (1824-1894), a well-known, wealthy citizen of Streator, Illinois, and Aurelia Ann Mooar Ames (1823-1898). Her siblings were John C Ames, Fannie Ophelia Ames, and Elmer Elsworth Ames.
In her childhood, she was always very small and delicate, but as she grew older, her health became vigorous. Ames began attending school at the age of three, as it was lonely for her to be left at home when the older children left. She attended every day that summer and learned to read. The schoolhouse was one of the first to be built in that part of the country. Her father helped to b construct it and taught the first school lesson ever, becoming the headmaster later in his life. The name of the Ames schoolhouse stayed with it and made it a sort of monument to the first schoolmaster, who was, like his youngest daughter, a devoted lover of learning. Ames' brother Elmer was two years younger than she, was always her companion and a playmate. As they grew up they lost none of their devotion to each other. Her elder and only sister accompanied Ames on Sunday mornings along with their grandfather to the little schoolhouse where religious services were held, in which they always participated.
Like that, she grew until she was seven years old, when the family moved to Streator, Illinois. She was 12 years old, when she was converted, having attended six weeks of revival meeting in the old church in Streator. The Methodist Church is not particularly rigid, so that her breezy spirit lost none of its elasticity from being developed in a religious atmosphere so highly charged.
She entered Streator Township High School in 1873, where she took a four-year course, and soon distinguished herself by her fondness for English literature and history. She was an excellent reader. Her quaint humor and remarkable good-nature made her a fine entertainer at the public exhibitions, where the literary society frequently gave presentations. Beginning in September 1879, she attended Wesleyan University, at Bloomington, Illinois, studying literature, history, art and aesthetics, as well as some of the languages and natural sciences. She was a member of the Munsellian literary society, and Kappa Gamma Greek sorority. At Wesleyan, she met Professor Susan M. D. Fry, an accomplished teacher, whom she always loved not only as an instructor, but as a most helpful and intimate friend. She left Wesleyan in June, 1881. She later graduated from the Chicago School of Oratory (now Columbia College Chicago).
Career
For years, it was her thought that she would become a missionary, and when she decided to go into the temperance work one of her friends told her: "Julia, you have then relinquished the old idea of being a missionary?" whereupon she responded in her quick, bright way, "No, indeed, I am still thinking of it very strongly;" but she speedily found that temperance was really practical missionary work.
Helen Louise Hood first became acquainted with Ames in the summer of 1885 at the Lake Bluff (Illinois) Training School, but their real acquaintance did not begin until the Women's Christian Temperance Union's(WCTU) National Convention which was held a few months later at Philadelphia. On their way to the Convention, Ames was made a delegate by the Illinois white-ribboners. On the way back home, they talked long and earnestly about her future, Hood urging Ames to come and cast in her lot with the "white-ribboners". During this homeward ride, Matilda Carse was in the car reading a novel Yolande, by William Black. Seeing a resemblance in the character of the heroine of this book to Ames, Carse called her, requested to kneel and touched her head, then she kissed her lovingly on the forehead and said: "Arise! I dub thee, Yolande" - a name by which she was known afterwards by all of her associates.