The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1875-07-08
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 MOTTO 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 i'll
her life purpose and hearts work; her
suffcrings, her noble heroism, her un-
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 fidcl-
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
rcigns, but where, also, she believed that
her hero husband, dead or alive, must be.
| We may guess that for long years there
! dwelt hope in her heart that Sir John
| was vet alive; that he had somehow es-
capped, perhaps, from the vast ice prison;
that he had passed, by pcrilous 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 vcstiges OF
| Franklin and his men had been found,
| vestiges which left no doubt of their iden-
tity, or of the long-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 sacrificing wives. His
first wife, Eleanor Porden, lay NOR
tally ill when he set out on his
second Arctic expedition, in 1925. He
offered to remain till she was well; but
she begged him to proceed on his voyage,
and placed in his hands 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 wed 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 seem And now, at last, after
| long, weary waiting, and when she has
| DdSSeu l1lc pSdlIllSt lllilt VI tilSC SSoIc
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-lost
hero and husband Should she pass away
it is to be hoped that her memory will be
honored by memorial in England's IS
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
romance and an example to future genera
tions of the young, and her name will be-
come the duplication of wifely virtues.
Boston Post.
"A boy who had stolen some apples
was forgiven for the rather ingenious
manner in which he excused himself. The
schoolmaster asking him what he had to
saw for himself, the urchin replied: "The
apples were Toms; don't know how he
| - .t.o,,, aud ,,cVy thnv,ra mine and he