Florence Allston Rogers

Florence Allston Rogers, my husband's great-aunt was born October 1896 in Trenton, Mercer County, NJ to Dr. Elmer H. Rogers and Mary Olivia Bowers Rogers, their fourth child.   Florence was a very bright child, I have found a number of newspaper articles chronicling her accomplishments.  In June of 1910, she won first prize in a temperance essay contest at the Joseph Wood School.  Her essay "The Saloon and American Liberty" won her $5 in gold starting her career in writing.  In 1915, another article in the the Trenton Evening Times reported on her graduation from Trenton High School.  For three years in a row she won the Lincoln medal for highest honor in her class.

She also wrote a number of plays, one the "The Modern Blue Monday" was performed as part of the commencement exercises.  After her graduation, she attended Swarthmore College.  In 1916, she composed a Shakespearean pageant "May Day at Larchmont" for the Friends' Association of which she was a member.  She also acted as stage director and appeared in one scene.

It appears she never married; in the 1920 census she is living with her mother, brother Alvin and sister Olivia, her occupation listed as "supervisor mother's pension fund."  In the 1930 census she is again living with her mother and sister at age 32 occupation listed as "none."  She is mentioned in her sister Olivia's obituary in January 1943 and again in a court document filed by the City of Trenton six years after her brother Alvin's death in 1943.  I have been unable to find any further mention of her or an obituary.