In one of her “Bits and Pieces of Walton County History” columns, Anna Reardon wrote: “Wallace Bruce was born in Hillsdale, N.Y. on January 10, 1844. He was well-educated, graduating with honors from Yale University about 1868. . . . He married Anna Becker of Scodak Depot, N.Y. about 1870. She was born October 22, 1849, and also had a good education, having attended a private ‘Young Ladies Academy’ in northern New York. . . . Wallace Bruce was a scholar, author, poet and lecturer. He was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to serve as U.S. Consul to Edinborough, Scotland, where the family lived from 1889 to 1893. . . . After Wallace Bruce returned to this country, he continued his career, lecturing throughout the country.”
Wallace Bruce had a grand vision for the Florida Chautauqua. A pamphlet was created to raise funds for the Hall of Brotherhood. It listed those who had already pledged to donate $100 towards the construction of the building, including Reverend William A. Allen and John Jett McCaskill of DeFuniak Springs and two United States Senators, George Peabody Wetmore of Rhode Island and Chauncey M. Depew of New York. The pamphlet stated, “The western wing of the Hall of Brotherhood will be known as ‘Yale University Hall,’ and will be dedicated to the Yale Boys of the South. It will be used as a Lecture Hall for American History and Literature, and as a reception room and rallying place for graduates and representatives of Colleges and Universities everywhere.” It listed some distinguished alumni who had already subscribed, including Cornelius Vanderbilt and Wallace Bruce.
Wallace Bruce was president of Chautauqua until his death in 1914. He had two sons and one daughter, all of whom played a part in the continuation of the assemblies. Kenneth, who assisted Wallace in the final years of his life, took over until he died two years later. Malcolm then served as president until the early 1920s, but the glory days of Chautauqua had passed. Malcolm moved away and his brother-in-law, Dr. George H. Abernethy, who had married Wallace’s daughter Clara in 1906, became president of the association, but it ceased in the late 1920s. Several attempts were made to revive Chautauqua up until the early 1930s, including an attempt by Bruce Abernethy, son of George and Clara, but none were successful.
While DeFuniak Springs was his winter home, he also maintained a residence in Brooklyn, New York. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran two articles about his death in its January 3, 1914, edition. One told the story of his life and death, and the other honored his soul:
” Literary Brooklyn was proud of Wallace Bruce, who has just died, in his winter home in Florida. He was a poet, not of sustained flight, but of gentle fancy and human tenderness, at his best stirring one as his loved Robert Burns stirred men and women to a realization of the brotherhood of man. There was music as well as thought and feeling in Mr. Bruce’s poems. He was a prose descriptive writer of no mean rank, an orator, who had been the star at Burns’ dinners in Edinburgh, as well as Brooklyn.
“Wallace Bruce was United States Consul at Edinburgh under the Harrison Administration, named as of Scotch stock, though born in the United
Obituaries: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle , January 3, 1914, Pages 6 and 18.
Burial: Magnolia Cemetery, DeFuniak Springs
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