removal to boylston place.—w. d. howells.—marion crawford as a boy.—the romance of a fire.—the cretan insurrection.—sisters julia and laura accompany our parents to greece.—a grim passenger.—a price is set on my father’s head.—our cretan sewing-circle and concert.—over-modest amateurs.—the sumner bronzes.
in the autumn of 1865 we left no. 13 chestnut street, greatly to our regret. the owner of the house, mr. sargent, decided to live there himself, so we moved to no. 19 boylston place. my father never approved of this locality, as it was on made ground and rather low. it had been a part of old mr. ——’s garden. however, i do not think it affected the health of the family unfavorably. having some trouble with the drainage, he sent for the master of the drains. this official looked exactly as one might guess from his title—quaint, seedy, with bloodshot eyes. i suspect boston did not then have a sewerage system.
the move from chestnut street had been a hurried one, as my father hoped almost to the last to find a situation better to his liking than boylston place. i was now at the age, twenty years, when young people feel the responsibility of the world resting heavily on their shoulders. during the preparations for removal i flew up and down stairs and attempted to do a hundred things, without any regard for my own strength, which i supposed to be unlimited. the result was a strain that affected my health unfavorably for some years. the fault was my own, as no one had asked or expected me to do so much.
in these years i began to be interested in charitable work, conducting a sewing-school for poor children at our own house. occasionally our sittings were interrupted by the merry raids of the young howes, who launched sponges and other missiles at my scholars. the latter took refuge under the dining-room table, but appreciated the sport of the affair. when my father looked in upon the children at work his face lit up with a beautiful smile that was more than reward enough for my small efforts.
in our frequent drives between south boston and boston we passed through a somewhat squalid tenement-house district. concern for the people dwelling there now began to oppress me, and i made efforts, though not always wise ones, to help them.
among my protégées was a mrs. wallace, a stalwart irish woman with several children, whose husband had pains in his legs whenever he held the baby. we started her in a fruit-stand and made various efforts in her behalf. she was later arrested for some misdemeanor and it required several policemen to take her, struggling all the way, to the station-house.
a very unpleasant though amusing incident of our life at boylston place was the arrival of a box containing six semi-wild cats, sent to my father by our friend, mr. thomas r. hazard, as a species of joke when the box was opened the cats flew out of it, scattering in every direction. fortunately for the howe family, some of them escaped from the house. the most troublesome one persisted in rushing up the chimney-place in my room whenever we approached her.
about this time the family narrowly escaped a serious danger. one evening my mother, being up late, noticed on the ceiling a slight discoloration; she also thought she heard a low tick-tick as of flames. being very sleepy, she reasoned thus with herself: “even if there should be a fire and we should be burned up, why, then david and flossy could be married.”
arousing herself from this strange altruistic vein, she called my father. in time of danger he was in his element. he speedily chopped open the floor of the parlor and the flames appeared! meantime, brother harry, hastily attired, rushed out for a policeman. the latter showed very languid interest.
“fire—where?”
“at no. 19 boylston place.”
“o lord!” ejaculated the officer of the law, and rushed for the spot. his own home was next door!
on the other side of us lived mrs. richards and her five stalwart sons. whenever our furnace sent out smoke, it went into the richards’ house. hence the young men, smelling smoke, came in to see what was wrong with us. sister laura, who was a very pretty and charming girl, roused suddenly from sleep, appeared barefoot upon the scene, with her fine hair floating over her shoulders. two or three years later she married the youngest of the fire-fighters.
i was staying in new york at the time, and so missed the great scene of the fire. it was put out without much damage.
it will be judged from my mother’s remark that my engagement was a long one, my fiancé being a young lawyer studying in his father’s office. during the five years that elapsed before our marriage i found it pleasant to make visits in new york, staying with great-uncle richard ward. he possessed the courtly manners of a gentleman of the old school, his diction being somewhat old-fashioned. thus he frequently said, “no, lady,” or “yes, lady,” a form of address now used chiefly by dependents. uncle richard was a thorough ward, of tall and massive frame, though not at all stout. he had been six feet four inches tall in his younger days, and wore number eleven gloves, it was said. his shoes were on the same scale. during the life of uncle john (when the two brothers lived together) there was a room at the rear of the house devoted to their footgear. it was a veritable acreage of shoes which resembled small cradles. leather was then supposed to last longer if boots were given a rest instead of being used constantly. uncle richard wore one of the hideous wigs of the period, having lost his hair many years before. a family tradition declared that, from the receding of the gums, his teeth had all dropped out while still sound. he received us always with great kindness and hospitality. the only drawback to the pleasure of a visit at no. 8 bond street was the temperature of the house, which was cold for our modern taste. in addition to an old-fashioned and rather ineffectual furnace there were pleasant open-grate fires in all the rooms. we soon learned that we must not poke these too much when uncle richard was present, for a temperature comfortable to us was distressing to him. as we sat playing whist of an evening, he would get up and leave the room from time to time, in order to cool off in the hall.
he made it a point of pride not to wear an overcoat, and seldom did so, though he dressed very warmly beneath his invariable black suit. what he should wear on a cold day became in his later years a serious question. he would call in consultation his faithful old retainer. mary oliver would sometimes decide the matter by weighing the clothes!
uncle richard was very much interested in genealogy and took great pride in his ancestors. he informed me that the boys at school looked with respect on his brothers and himself because they were descended from four governors! dear deluded man! how could he so misunderstand boy nature! i’ve no doubt their schoolmates treated the brothers with due respect, the wards being a large and powerful race. it is more prudent not to offend bigger boys.
he was showing me one day an old family bible in which the names of seven generations of wards were inscribed. seeing a visitor come up the front steps, he closed the book.
“now, my dear, we will not talk about ancestors before mr. so-and-so,” he observed. “because if we speak of these before other people, they also talk about theirs, and that is not so interesting!”
i do not think he wrote any account of his forebears, leaving that for his successor in the cult, cousin john ward. the latter does not mention the fourth awe-inspiring governor, but perhaps he was on the distaff side.
william dean howells was one of the noted people who came to see us in boylston place. sister julia and i fancied that he looked like an amiable richard iii. his black hair was parted in the middle—a thing not usual in the ’sixties. although cut short, it strayed over his forehead in a way to suggest the close-cropped hair of the medieval knight, while his dark complexion, short, compact figure, and something unusual about his face, suggested this resemblance to us. the comparison was not invidious, because we admired edwin booth in the r?le of richard iii.
we were interested in mr. howells’s india-rubbers, they were so small! mr. and mrs. frank leslie, with mrs. squiers, also spent an evening with us. both ladies were in full evening dress, doubtless supposing the occasion would be a formal one. mrs. squiers was a striking-looking person whose face did not recommend itself to me. after the death of the first wife, she became the second mrs. frank leslie. all suffragists owe her a debt of gratitude for her generous gift of her fortune to our cause.
one of our delightful visitors in these days was our cousin-german frank, known later as marion crawford, the novelist. he was sent to this country to receive his early education, spending several years at st. paul’s school in concord, new hampshire. he was now about ten years old, a handsome, freshfaced boy, very much interested in locomotives. he brought a number of engravings of these, which i politely examined, in spite of my perfect indifference to engines of all sorts. in later years my youngest son, discovering with pain this trait in his mother’s character, observed, reflectively:
“it must be strange not to be interested in locomotives.”
“no, jack, it is not strange at all!”
young crawford was as full of fun as other boys of his age. with brother harry he performed various antics at the house of my aunt, mrs. mailliard, in bordentown, new jersey. her family were surprised, when walking in the garden, to see the stand of the lost rocking-horse protruding from the chimney!
dear old mr. joseph greene cogswell, who had been the first librarian of the astor library, was sitting quietly by the fire when boots suddenly came down the chimney. with perfect gravity he picked these out of the fire with the tongs, causing great amusement to the naughty boys watching above.
sister julia was ten years older than frank, but they were great chums. during one of our periodical stays at the institution for the blind they bought cream-cakes with the money given them for car fare, and walked the two or more miles from boston to south boston with cheerful hearts!
during our residence in boylston place my father did some of his writing in the house and asked us to make no noise near his room. we were so young and thoughtless as to think this request unreasonable. true, we knew, in a general way, that he was writing the report for the massachusetts board of state charities, but this meant little to us. in later years we came to understand what labor and fatigue the task involved, for the board was the pioneer body of its kind in the united states. my father’s wide experience made it inevitable that he should be summoned to sit on it. “the nestor and achilles of public charities in massachusetts” soon became the chairman. in a series of annual reports he advocated a system of dealing with the dependent classes which was accepted and still remains in force, not only in massachusetts, but in many other states and in some european countries.
public institutions, he declared, should be built only in the last resort. the dependent classes should be diffused through the community, not gathered together. children should be cared for in families, not in institutions. defectives should be brought together only for purposes of instruction. they should not live together in homes, as their peculiarities thus become more strongly developed, but with normal people.
as a pioneer in eugenics he strongly disapproved of the policy of certain trustees of the reform school for girls. these wished to bury in oblivion the former bad life of the young women, allowing young men to marry them without any warning of their past misbehavior. my father knew this was all wrong and so declared, drawing upon himself sarcastic denunciations from the unwise trustees.
when it was proposed to build a large institution at winthrop, he wrote to the newspapers, showing the evil of congregating so many people under one roof.
an unexpected ally appeared in a correspondent who wrote doctor howe, approving the stand he had taken “because, although it is not generally known, there are lions and tigers under the proposed site of the institution!”
my father’s labors have often seemed to me like those of hercules. he succeeded in them because he had great confidence in the benevolence of his fellow-men; he knew they would respond to appeals made in the right spirit, if matters were clearly explained.
“obstacles are things to be overcome,” was one of his mottoes. “qui facit per alium, facit per se,” was another.
so long as the deed was done, it mattered not to him who did it or who received the praise. if some one else could carry out his plan, he was off to the next task. he was too busy to give any time to the recording of his own accomplishments. hence he had all the more for the work in hand.
in 1866 came the stirring news of the revolt of crete against her mohammedan oppressors. the island had earned its freedom with the rest of greece in the war of independence, but by a cruel stroke of diplomacy had been put back under the heel of the turk.
we shudder in the year 1918 at the cruelties of the germans, the self-styled huns. yet they were once christians and some remains of christian thought and practice still linger among their soldiery. but the turks have always been barbarians. in the early days of the rising of 1866–68 we learned with horror of the fate of the brave and desperate cretans who, gathered together in church or fortress, blew themselves into eternity rather than fall into the savage hands of the turks. men did the same thing in the greek revolution, to escape the same terrible fate!
my father was now sixty-five years old. yet “he heard the voice of greece calling him,” and he answered the call, as he had answered it nearly half a century before.
then he had gone, in the enthusiasm of his bright youth, alone to a strange land, whose language he did not speak. now he at once called a meeting in music hall, boston, where edward everett hale, oliver wendell holmes, wendell phillips, the silver-tongued orator, and others spoke.
my father presided and made a brief speech:
“i knew hundreds of them [the cretans]—good men and true. i had been in their beautiful island, had stood a siege with them in one of their beleaguered fortresses, and witnessed their courage.... i see them now, the sons of my old companions, in their snowy chemise and their shaggy capote, saying, sadly, ‘good-by, mother! good-by, sister and child! seek your refuge in the neighboring isles, upon the main, wherever the hand of christian mercy may aid you. we go to the mountains to keep the flag of freedom flying as long as we live!’ my friends, these unfortunate women and children are now suffering as many of their mothers suffered forty years ago. your fathers and your mothers relieved them. will you not relieve their children?”
of course they would and did. thirty-seven thousand dollars were raised, and in march, 1867, my father sailed for greece, to be once more the almoner of american charity.
the cretan refugees had been obliged to fly hastily, and were in a destitute, almost naked condition. the good women of boston responded to this call by forming sewing-circles to make clothing for these exiles.
i inaugurated one among my young friends, but looked in vain for a president. i appealed to emily russell, who had held this office in a similar society.
“why aren’t you the president yourself?” she suggested. the idea had not previously occurred to me, as i had had no experience. however, i accepted her advice, learning then that if you start an enterprise you must expect to take the responsibility on your own shoulders.
just what kind of undergarments the women of the orient wore we did not know. fortunately for us, a circle of older ladies took the responsibility, cutting out for us pattern “togas” and “pajamas.” they were of unbleached muslin—or cotton cloth. the price of this had been seventy-five cents a yard during the civil war, and was still very high in 1867.
we were merry over the naming of the garments and over their unusual shape. my mother, who assisted in the distribution of the clothing to the refugees at athens, tells us that they were suitable in pattern and quality.
one or more of our meetings were held at the institution for the blind, where laura bridgman, despite her lack of sight and hearing, ran the sewing-machine for us.
the year 1867 and a good part of 1868 were largely occupied with work for the cretan cause. my mother and sisters, julia and laura, accompanied my father to europe, i having remained behind from choice. this was partly out of deference to the wishes of my fiancé and partly because i had not yet recovered from the strain received during the removal to boylston place.
a quiet summer was indicated for me—but how was it possible to compass this when the letters from greece were so moving? sister laura, in particular, wrote such harrowing accounts of the refugees that i could not remain inactive. brother harry, sister maud and i were spending the greater part of the summer at our home in lawton’s valley, where our aunt, mrs. joseph n. howe, and her daughters were installed for the season.
i rashly decided to arrange an amateur concert for the benefit of the cretans. true, i knew something of music, but of the nature of amateur musicians i was blissfully ignorant. the first step was easy enough. the stirring letters from greece afforded plenty of ammunition for a circular appeal to the leading people of newport, of which we wrote many copies. brother harry, now a junior at harvard college, was my right hand in the whole matter, working most unselfishly and constantly.
day after day we took the six-mile drive to newport, calling upon prospective patronesses and singers. the former responded nobly. mrs. e. d. morgan, wife of the war governor of new york state, took fifty tickets, although her husband had already contributed to the cause.
but the singers! oh, the singers! such backing and filling, such coy consents, withdrawn almost as soon as made! it had not occurred to my youthful mind that the amateur musician normally displays his talents before a private audience. in asking him to sing before the public, at an entertainment for which tickets were sold, i was requesting something unusual. doubtless many felt their talents were not sufficient for the task. the cretan concert might never have materialized except for the timely aid of miss jane stuart. daughter of the famous painter, gilbert stuart, and an artist herself, she was one of the characters of old newport. her father had been one of the few to give my father god-speed when the latter started for greece in 1824, and he had reciprocated the kindness by helping miss jane in some undertaking. she was extremely grateful, and once showed her feeling by embracing him. “my dear, i might just as well have kissed that door!” she afterward said to my mother. my father was a true new englander in disliking all such demonstrations, and miss jane was extremely plain.
she and her elder sister lived in a pleasant little cottage on mill street. this was practically headquarters for us during our cretan concert campaign. miss jane gave us her aid and counsel in every possible way. i’m ashamed to think how often we imposed upon the kindness of the two ladies by staying to luncheon. miss anne, born toward the close of the eighteenth or at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was a gentlewoman of the old school. she wore a black head-dress covering a great part of her head—the successor to the turban, perhaps. she was not so witty as miss jane, whose conversation was very charming. the agreeable women of the older generation whom i remember in my youth had grown up before the day of the short story and almost before that of the magazine. hence it was a part of their social education, the knowledge of how to tell anecdotes in a truly interesting way.
another friend who helped us in our undertaking was miss anna vernon, who thoroughly loved music and gave much time to it. she then lived in the historic vernon house, the headquarters of rochambeau. it is now decorated with a medallion portrait of him.
i was so much absorbed in my new undertaking as to suppose every one else would be interested in it. perhaps that is the secret of successful canvassing! to my urgent request that he would go with me to drum up recruits col. thomas wentworth higginson at last replied:
“why, i am the only man in newport who has anything to do!”
this gentle rebuke was disconcerting, but, having delivered it, and so freed his mind, the gallant colonel climbed into my pony-chaise and we made the projected calls together. at that time he and his first wife were living in newport. she was a superior woman, but a victim of a form of rheumatism which made her almost helpless. her husband was devoted to her.
the amateurs continuing hopelessly coy, we had, in a moment of desperation, an interview with the manager of an opera troupe. it did not prove practicable, however, to hand the concert over to professionals.
we were obliged to call in the aid of one, mrs. flora cary, afterward mrs. barry, a concert singer with a fine contralto voice. she generously gave us her services. my mother’s cousin, john ward, possessed a well-cultivated tenor voice, and he, too, nobly volunteered. with the help of these and other performers the concert for the benefit of the cretans at last came off. we cleared four hundred dollars, and a donation from the misses hazard, the sisters of mr. thomas hazard, brought our profits up to five hundred.
cousin john had taken degrees both as a doctor and as a lawyer, yet he practised neither profession. the possession of money was an effective damper on his activities. for many years he was a member of the well-known mendelssohn glee club of new york. unfortunately, he desired also to be a poet, a career for which nature had not intended him. he had a theory that perseverance was the main requisite. hence he would read his verses to some unfortunate friend, and if the latter made any criticism which seemed to him just he would call on the friend a second time, and recite a revised version, asking if that were any better!
his friends took refuge in polite lies. “oh no, john, i have no taste for poetry. i’m no judge of it—it would not be of any use to read that to me!”
even the most conscientious fell from truth, after a while. when it came to the third degree—listening to the same verses, altered slightly to suit your taste, for the third time you surrendered. you accepted them as faultless—anything, rather than listen to them again.
he printed a volume of poems, which he determined should be letter-perfect. of course it was not—but the printer profited handsomely by the venture.
a more practical taste was that for genealogy. we owe to his painstaking industry biographies of our common ancestors, governor samuel ward and his son, lieutenant-colonel ward, as well as an account of the continental congress before the declaration of independence. thereby hangs a tale. governor samuel ward was not only a member of that congress, but presided constantly over the body as chairman of the committee of the whole, until march 15, 1776, when he was obliged to leave the session, owing to a violent attack of smallpox! he died shortly after, and so did not sign the famous document. his colleague, stephen hopkins, did live to sign it, yet it was the “physical disability” of the latter which threw such a burden of work on governor ward that he was in an entirely unfit state to cope with the disease!
we have found it a little hard to forgive our distinguished ancestor his imprudence. if he had only been inoculated beforehand all might have been well, but he could not take the time! however, we console ourselves by remembering that he was the only colonial governor who refused to carry out the odious stamp act!
his son, lieut-col. samuel ward, did good service in the revolution. cousin john regarded these and other ancestors with a reverence that amounted almost to awe. he would let you take a peep at governor ward’s congressional journal, but you were not permitted to touch it. yet he made no provision for the care of these beloved papers after his death. they were inherited by a relative who, possessing no taste for genealogical research, has locked them up in a safe-deposit box.
i have sometimes thought there should be one genealogist—and only one—in each generation. yet, when i remember the lives of some of those i have known, it seems a little hard to condemn even one person every thirty years to this gentle fate. for it is not to be denied that genealogists are often ineffective, though excellent, persons. it has been already said of cousin john that he went to the civil war. so he did his “bit” for his country.
during the seven months while the family were in europe sister maud remained under my charge. with the help of miss mary paddock, we kept house in the “doctor’s” part of the institution, visiting various relatives later on. that miss paddock should thus come to help us out was quite in the usual order of things. we were all fond of her and accepted her aid as a matter of course. as the young howes grew older, we saw and appreciated the sterling worth and rare unselfishness of her character.
it was a part of my father’s power to draw to his aid people of worth and ability. his chivalrous spirit thrilled through his assistants. they saw him devoting his life to the care of the maimed lambs of the human fold—they, too, would and did help in the good work. working with the “doctor” was no light service, yet all knew that he himself labored harder than any one else. of necessity there was much steady, practical work, yet, as in all pioneer labor, there was the romance of hewing out new paths. to enlist under the “doctor’s” banner was in itself an adventure. mary paddock did so enlist, becoming a teacher at the institution for the blind in her young womanhood. her devotion to my father ended only with his life. she was with us often at “lawton’s valley” and “green peace” as faithful friend and helper. during the last years of my father’s life, when his health was failing badly, she was his amanuensis and nurse. for her memory we all feel deep affection and gratitude.
the blind children were often my playmates. we were so accustomed to seeing and being with them that we thought little about their privation of sight. my father’s aim was to make them as much like seeing people as possible. thus they were taught to go about the house and grounds very freely, running down-stairs as rapidly as seeing boys and girls. some of them walked in the streets and even traveled in the cars alone. usually, however, a leader was required. occasionally i went with them, as guide, to opera or concert. many tickets were generously sent to them, especially for the less popular performances.
in the summer of 1867 sister maud was in her thirteenth year—a handsome child of generous and noble impulses, but of an impetuous disposition that made her at times difficult to deal with. “old splendid” was the name given her by a dressmaker to whom we were all attached. “the stormy petrel” was another nickname.
her lack of respect for the gods of the school-room filled my more conventional soul with horror. to call the excellent mr. greenleaf, the author of our arithmetic, a fool seemed to me eminently unreasonable. when, in a fit of exasperation over her studies, the ink-bottle was flung across the room, spattering the wall with its contents, i stood aghast. i did the best i could for my young charge while the family were in europe and was rewarded a hundredfold by her affection and gratitude.
my mother and sisters assisted in the work of distributing to the cretan refugees the ten thousand garments sent out from america. sister laura has described “the stately, dark-eyed cretan women, majestic even in their rags and misery; the slender girls; the lovely, dirty children.” she has told us of many romantic incidents which found no place in my father’s reports.[10] he always suppressed his own part in any undertaking, writing down only what was necessary to secure the interest of the reader.
a price was set upon his head by the turkish authorities of crete. nevertheless, he visited the island and the small rocky fortress where he had been besieged in the old days of the greek revolution.
10. letters and journals of samuel gridley howe. dana estes & co.
the howe sisters made a trip on a small steamer where there was a grim passenger—the head of a famous brigand who had just been captured and killed. they would have liked to see this horrible trophy, but my father would not permit it.
on their return to america, my father and mother began to make preparations for a fair in behalf of the cretans. my share was to revive the sewing-circle of the previous year. instead of working on “pajamas” and “togas,” we now had the more interesting occupation of sewing on pretty things. white coats with colored silk trimmings were then in fashion. i conceived the brilliant idea of making them at our sewing-circle, and so reaping a handsome profit. the girls groaned at undertaking anything so serious as outside garments, but i persuaded them that they could—and ought. these sold for a high price—between thirty and forty dollars apiece!
the fair was a great success, more than thirty thousand dollars being raised. the work for the cretans involved many meetings. money was raised by lectures and in other ways. a poster in one of the theaters announcing a performance for their benefit drew this comment from a passer-by:
“the cretans? who in h—l are the cretans?”
in spite of the splendid struggle made by the brave inhabitants of the island, they were at last obliged to go back under barbarian rule. but it was only for a time. my father did not live to see crete freed, but we, the children of the philhellene, rejoiced and were exceeding glad when the hated mohammedan yoke was thrown off.
the cretan episode had one very unexpected result. among my father’s helpers in athens was a young greek, michael anagnostopoulos. when he was asked what payment he desired for his services, he replied:
“what do you receive for yours, doctor howe?”
“nothing,” said my father.
“neither do i wish to be paid,” the young greek answered. but he did want to see america!
he returned with the family to boston, where, after mastering the difficulties of the english language, he became doctor howe’s assistant at the institution for the blind. in the year 1870 he married sister julia, succeeding to the directorship after my father’s death in 1876.
we were all made happy by the purchase of no. 32 mount vernon street, soon after the return of the family from europe. this residence, on the top of beacon hill, was spacious and pleasant.
the preceding owner was a maiden lady with a great fondness for cats. they were not included in the bill of sale, but hung about the place. cats seemed to be our fate!
as i had not fully recovered my strength, a room on the ground floor was allotted to me, so that i need not climb the stairs. a furnace burning wood was put into the house as being more wholesome than anthracite coal.
once or twice i heard a friendly tap on the window-pane, and opened the door to admit brother harry, who had forgotten his latch-key. from the lapel of his dress-coat gleamed many favors, tokens of the mimic victories of the german. for he was a good dancer and a favorite in society.
fifty years later, when the john fritz gold medal was presented to him, at a meeting of the united engineering societies held in his honor, i again saw stars shining upon his breast, the tokens not of mimic, but of real victories. for brother harry has won golden opinions by his strenuous work, and many honors, from foreign countries as well as from england and america, have been bestowed on him. yet he has taken them all with a modesty that disarms envy.
in 1869 he graduated from harvard college. his class day was an event in the family, especially for sister laura, who was then at the right age—nineteen—to enjoy the festival fully. various desperate swains attended her on that day and made love to her amid the classic shades of the old harvard yard. she was a pretty, perhaps a beautiful girl, with a sweetness and freshness of disposition delightful to behold. though clever and witty, she was too amiable to say sharp things. hence great was the number of her admirers.
i had now assumed the cares of the family housekeeping, as well as a certain supervision over the clothes of the younger sisters. sister julia was not interested in these things. it must be regretfully admitted that under my sway plain living was too much accentuated. finding a diet of prunes and toast for supper (dinner was still at two o’clock) monotonous and uninteresting, the family rebelled and declared they must have a more generous and varied bill of fare. even my father questioned whether, in view of my natural tendencies to economy, it might have been a mistake to teach me bookkeeping! i do not think this was his real opinion, however. during one of my absences from home he wrote that he missed me as the regulating clock of the establishment. the high prices which continued to prevail long after the end of the civil war made prudence in expenditure necessary for people of moderate income. i kept the family accounts, the central figure from whom we received funds, and who was supposed to demand an exact accounting of all moneys given out, being put down as “the house.” my father once jokingly exclaimed, “who is house? every one seems to be against him!”
he was now requested to take part in a new enterprise which deeply interested him. the republic of santo domingo having asked to be annexed to the united states, president grant appointed hon. benjamin f. wade, of ohio, hon. andrew d. white, and my father as commissioners to visit the island and investigate the conditions there.
they sailed in the steamer tennessee, after warning us that we must not be alarmed if no news was received from them for a month. nevertheless, it was difficult to avoid worry when sensational stories appeared in the newspapers about the supposed foundering of the tennessee. the wife of andrew d. white suffered such anxiety that her hair turned white!
with the assistance of a corps of scientific observers, they made a careful investigation of conditions in the little republic and wrote a report heartily favoring annexation. i’m sorry to say that charles sumner, misled by designing people, made a speech in the senate strongly opposing it, before this report had been presented. others attacked it and the measure failed. thus grant’s plan of gaining a foothold in the tropics was for the moment defeated.
my father still hoped that something might be done for santo domingo through private enterprise. during his last visit to the island news came of the death of charles sumner. my father was deeply grieved, for in spite of the difference of opinion about santo domingo the old friendship remained unbroken.
to each of the howe daughters, and i think to the longfellow daughters also, charles sumner left a legacy of five hundred dollars. he also bequeathed his fine collection of bronzes to my father and mr. longfellow. mother and sister maud met the poet and made the division. sister maud complained afterward that our mother would choose first some piece that she especially fancied, instead of selecting the largest and most valuable articles. sister maud was still in her teens!
the older three howe sisters were all married within a twelvemonth, sister julia choosing the thirtieth day of december, 1870, in order that she might begin the new life with the new year. she was married at home. sister laura’s wedding took place at the church of the disciples, on the 17th of june. we had forgotten that the procession of bunker hill day might interfere with the going to and from the church. it did cause some delay.
my marriage took place at no. 32 mount vernon street, in november, 1871. all three of us had simple weddings, followed by pleasant, informal receptions. we had no bridesmaids. several of sister laura’s disappointed lovers went off on an excursion together, instead of attending the ceremony.
she and her husband went to europe on their wedding-tour, visiting greece, constantinople, italy and other countries.
brother harry graduated from the massachusetts institute of technology, at the head of his class, leaving boston during this same fateful year 1871. our parents were thus left with only one out of the five children—sister maud—but she was a host in herself, while their many interests and many friends acted as a cheerful counter-irritant to loneliness.
brother harry married, in april, 1874, miss fannie gay, daughter of willard gay, esq., of troy, new york. the wedding was in church, a handsome reception following it.
