Hudson, Elizabeth

Dates

• Existence: 1885 - 1973

Biography

Mary Elizabeth Hudson was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on April 25, 1885, the daughter of Rev. Robert Hudson and Mary Mosgrove Hudson. Raised in Syracuse, New York, where her father was rector of Trinity Church. Elizabeth Hudson attended Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and returned to Syracuse to work with Memorial Hospital's social services. She traveled to France during World War I to assist in the relief efforts for children left destitute by the war. While in France, she trained as a volunteer nurse, and served at the American Military Hospital No. 1 (also known as the American Ambulance Hospital) in Paris. She also served as a "marraine de guerre," a correspondent with soldiers, many of whom wrote to her even after the war. During World War II, Hudson served on the board of directors for the Coordinating Council of French Relief Societies.

Around 1925, she wrote to the Irish author Edith Somerville, and soon after, paid a visit to Somerville in Ireland. The two became friends, writing and visiting each other frequently. After the death of Hudson's good friend and companion, Dorothy Sturges (1889-1933), Somerville comforted Hudson by trying to contact Sturges using automatic writing. In the early 1930s Hudson began compiling a bibliography of first editions of books by Somerville and Ross. The project was postponed, first by the slowness of the editor who accepted the project, A. J. A. Symons, then by the outbreak of World War II, and finally by the death of Symons. A Bibliography of the First Editions of the Works of OE. Somerville and Martin Ross was eventually published in 1942 by the Sporting Gallery and Bookshop in New York. Elizabeth Hudson died in New York City on May 2, 1973.