I. M. E. Blandin

She was also the author of fiction and non-fiction works, History of Higher Education of Women in the South, Prior to 1860 being chief among them.

[2][3] Her parents were Joseph Reid and Rosa Jane (née Smith) John, the former a native of North Carolina, a lawyer who lived in Uniontown and Selma, Alabama.

[1] Her father, with other men of means of Uniontown, subscribed the money to employ teachers to conduct a school in the town, and Blandin received her early education there.

[3] She was left a widow in 1866 with three children (John, Mary, Belle) and, in order to support them, began, in 1870, to teach school.

[1] She instituted settlement work in the latter place and organized the first city mission board of which she was president for several years.