Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-07-08
The History of Lady Franklin.

The History of Lady Franklin.
THERE is something both touching and
appropriate in the petition ofLady Frank
lin, lying in dangerous and perhaps NOR
tai illness, for the prayers ofthe American
people. 1t was an American expedition
which brought to an end her terrible and
long-lingering suspense. From McClin-
took and his brave comrades she at last
learned the -be-doubted news that
her gallant and heroic husband had per-
ished amid the icy mysteries of the
farthest North. Lady Franklin did not
need this proof of American interest in,
her life purpose and hearts work; her
sufferings, her noble heroiSm, her I'M
selfish devotion, her untiring energy, her
uncowed spirit, have always received our
WarmeSt sympathies. Surely her appeal
will be answered, if not in the churches
where perhaps it will beat least in
thousands of hearts impressed with the
beauty of her devotion throughout the
land. The old classic tales of wifely fidel-
ity and sacrifice almost pale before her
heroic search for her husbands fate for
more than thirty years. Left alone at an
age when it is proper to be joyous and eX-
cusable to be giddy and forgetful, she has
passed early and later youth, woman
ly prime and oncoming age in this
constant, heart-ringing, yet undismayed
pursuit. The pleasures, the ambitions ,
of life were afar off from her; her
soul dwelt in the grim solitudes of ice
deserts; her spirit was in the vague re
giOns where there is nothing of vegeta-
ton, where an awful and eternal silence
reigns, but where, also, she believed that
her hero husband, dead or alive, must be.
We may guess that for long years there
dwet hope in her heart that Sir John
was yet alive; that he had somehow es-
capped, perhaps, from the vast ice prison;
that he had passed, by perilous wander
ings and, it might be, by shipWreck, far
beyond the frozen North, and been thrown
upon some remote but hOspitable land,
where the grass grew and men could live.
Then came the truth, that the vestiges of
Franklin and his men had been found,
vestiges which left no doubt of their iden-
tity, or of the ago-accomplished fate
Of the vOyagers. Certainty, even the sad
dest is better than narrowing suspense;
and Lady Franklin was as heroic under
the sure bereavement as she had borne up
nObly while there was still hope. Frank
lin must indeed have been noble man to
have inspired such devotion in the hearts
Of two self-sacriticing wives. His
first wife, Eleanor Porden, lay NOR
tally i'll when he set out on his
second Arctic expedition, in 1926 He
offered to remain till she was we'll; but
she begged him to proceed on his voyage,
and placed in his hands a silk flag, which
she asked him to hoist in the Polar Sea-
He sailed and the day after his gentle
young wife died He returned in three
years to we'd Jane Griffin, the lady who is
now known as Lady Franklin. The story
of her devotion is household words in both
countries. What she has suffered none
can tell that she has suffered nObly all
men have seen. And now, at last, after
long, weary waiting, and when she has
passed the psalmist's limit Of three-score
and ten by five years, it may be that her
life's desire is about to be granted her, and
that she will ere long rejoin her long-Iost
hero and husband. Should she pass away
it is TO be hoped that her memory will be
honored by a memorial in England's
grand old mausOleum, dedicated to kings,
mobiles, poets and heroes; for none lie in
Westminster Abbey more worthy to be
remembered for heroism and fidelity than
Lady Franklin. Her story will be a.
romance and an example to future genera
tions of the young, and her name will be-
come the duplication of wifely virtues
Boston Post.