When other children of her age were profiting by proximity to the railroad, the telegraph, music, art, literature and other facilities for education, she was peering through the small windows of her stone house, dreaming of places beyond home.

Her parents were plain people, whose wealth, they used to say, lay chiefly in their children, of whom there were eight boys and three girls,[1] Atherton's siblings being James, Joshua, Elizabeth, Henry, George, Franklin, and Frederick.

At sixteen, or as early as the law of the State of Pennsylvania permitted, she began teaching in a small country school in what was locally known as the "Cleveland District".

The letter said in part:—[3] "The little sister whom I left behind me years ago must be a young lady by this time, and I want her to be given an education.

[3][4] Yearning for growth, she boarded an ocean steamer in 1880 and sailed out of San Francisco with the fixed purpose of entering upon a new, broader, and more useful career.

Going first to Philadelphia in 1880, she spent one year in study in that city at the National School of Elocution and Oratory, and was graduated from there in 1881.

Out of necessity, being widowed in 1889, she devoted herself into that educational work and turned out such qualified stenographers as to attract general attention.

Because of its exactness, uniformity and interchangeability, the notes of one Chandler writer could easily read by any one knowing the system.

[4] The 12th Annual Convention of Chandler Shorthand writers was held on May 8 in the St. James theatre, Boston, with an attendance of nearly 1,500.

The high esteem in which she was held by those who came under her direct influence was indicated by the following extract from the constitution of the National Association of Chandler Shorthand Writers, organized in 1904:—[3] "The object of this association shall be to extend and perpetuate, through the means of a permanent organization, the valuable work which Mary Alderson Atherton has done for humanity in the interest of true education and characterbuilding."

It was invented by the late David Philip Lindsley and first published in book form during the early 1870s-before Mrs. Chandler knew anything about shorthand.