Thomas Hubbard Vail, 1812-1889, was the first Episcopal bishop of Kansas, and the first bishop to be consecrated west of the Mississippi River. In 1865 THV founded the Episcopal Seminary, the first institution for higher education of women west of the Mississippi, in Topeka, Kansas. Later renamed the College of the Sisters of Bethany, the school was absorbed into Washburn College in the 1930s. THV was one of seven bishops who in 1866 protested against the southern bishops' secession during the Civil War. THV was married twice: to Mrs. Frances Sophia Vose, and in 1867 to Ellen Ledlie (Bowman) with whom he founded Christ's Hospital in Topeka.
Ellen Ledlie (Bowman) Vail, 1828-1894, was the daughter of Samuel Bowman, assistant bishop of Pennsylvania, and of Susan (Sitgreaves); she was graduated from St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, New Jersey, in 1844. EBV served as Matron of the College of the Sisters of Bethany. The Vails had two children, Samuel Bowman Vail, 1868-1878, and Ellen Sitgreaves (Vail) Motter, 1870-1952. EBV became blind in 1879 at the age of fifty-one.
ESVM, the daughter of THV and EBV, was graduated as valedictorian from Bethany College in 1890. She did graduate work at Radcliffe, 1894-1895, studied music at the Boston Conservatory, and traveled abroad before her marriage in 1897. She and her husband, Murrary Galt Motter, 1867-1926, physician and Chief Librarian of the U.S. Public Health Service, had three children: Thomas Hubbard Vail Motter, 1901-1970, James Taylor Motter, 1904-1948, and Margaret (Motter) Miller, 1898-1979. ESVM was active in church and civic work, a founder of the National Library for the Blind (now part of the Library of Congress), and a member of the Board of Lady Managers of the Washington Ear, Eye, and Throat Hospital. A volume of her collected poems, From My Heart was published in 1949.
From the guide to the Papers of the Vail-Motter family, 1867-1969, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)
