The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-02-05
A Monument to Margaret.
HOW A PLAIN WOMAN TOOK THE GREAT
HEART OF NEW ORLEANS by STORM
MARGARET. THE ORPHANS FRIEND. :,
GGeo. w. Cable, in the Christian Union


MARGARET. THE ORPHANS FRIEND.
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[Geo. w. Cable in the Christian Union.
Half century ago, less one year only
there came to New Orleans, with her hus
band, Charles aughery, yonng woman
lately married. Her maiden name was
Margaret Gaffney. She was a native Of
Baltimore, whence she had Just come
where her parents had died of yellow
fever when she was a very little child
where kind family named Richards had
brought her up to young womanhood, and
where she had been married. She had moi
been very long in New Orleans when he1
husbands health failed. He sought
change in voyage to Ireland, and died
Her only child quickly followed him, and
the young wife was left, for the second
time In her short life, alone in the world.
Her equipment for the varied experiences
OF the untried years that lay before her
was OF the simplest sort. Of education
she had almost nothing; of beauty as lit
tle-to the outward eye; accomplish
ments, none; exterior graces, none; ag-
gressiye ambition, the disposition to
scheme or strive for station or preference.
none; sparkling gayety, exuberant mirth,
none; money, a little; financial sagacity,
fair share, but nothing extraordinary :
frugality? yes-as to herself. What else ?
religion? Yes, yes pure, sweet, gentle,
upbubbling, overlooking, plentiful. genu-
inc, deep and high; a faith proving itself
necessarily in works, and modesty and
Inconsistencies that made her benefcence
as silent as a stream underground. She
went into the domestic service of some
Sisters of Charity and Protestant ladies in
the orphan asylum founded by Julian
Poydras. When a separation was made.
and the Sisters opened separate institu-
ton, she went with them and took the
management of their large dairy. But her
heart was also in every other branch of
their work; she toiled for them and their
orphan wards with the ardor of mother.
and found all her joys in seeing them grad
ually rise out of want into comfort and
finally into independence. Almost the
only smile OF amusement that the Incl
dents of her life afford is that provoked by
the true picture of the young widow trund-
ling a wheelbarrow load of provisions
through the streets to the asylum, given
to the orphans on condition that she
would so carry it to them. When at length
the institution paid it's last dollar of debt
she left 1T to pursue the dairy business on
her own account. This business in it's new
aspectprospered greatly, for she gave it her
own close attention, and she had almost no
wants at all. Besides, she was woman
OF strong, good sense. In 1860 she opened
a new business in the heart of the city-a
bakery. But long before that, as well as
long and ever after it, any man might say
to you as a strange female passed in a
dingy milk cart-or bread cart in later
years-sitting alone and driving the slow,
well-fed horse There goes Margaret. y
Margaret who?" Margaret, the Orphans
Friend" And what has she done, what was
she doing to make her so famous? Moth
ing but give, give, give to the orphan boy
and orphan girl-Catholic, Protestant,
Hebrew-anything. Yes, one thing more :;
she gave and she loved. But that was all.
Never bid for attention. Nothing for
herself. They say her monument is just
like her. Well, then, it must lie a unique
piece of stone. She had no shape at al
~, lot for 20 II,
impassive: unconscious, unimaginative.
Her hands-why they were just big Irish
hands; and her eet-they matched the
hands. She dressed always in gown of
some thin but stout, fslaty-gray fabric,
with never frill OF rutfle, and on her head
in the same color, Shaker bonnet All!
but she was an ugly duckling! The whole
town honored her. The Presidents of
banks and insurance companies, of the
Chamber CT Commerce, the Produce Ex-
change, the Cotton Exchange, none of
them commanded the humble regard, the
quick Difference, from one merchant or a
dozen, that was given to Margaret. They
called her by her baptismal name, as they
do queens or saints. because they loved
her, and then loved her the more because
she went by that name; the name of that
sweet meadow-flower which Wordsworth
calls ''the poets darling And so this
plain woman, who never came near being
anybody's ideal, took the whole great town,
now rapidly coming on to be quarter of
a million of all sorts of people-so took it's
great multitudinous heart, that when.
little after midnight on the 9th of Febru-
airy, 1882, she was called up higher, it said
at once--the very next day-"We will go
by all that long line of illustrious dead to
which we have SO long owed monumental
brass and stone, and we will raise to the
view of citizen and stranger the efligy of
the Orphans Friend Now the good
deed is done. In place where many ways
meet, and just in front of the asylum that
one might say her own hands helped to
build, she sits unsheltered in the beating
Southern sunshine, save for the marble UNI
idealized, the dear, plain Margaret, in her
accustomed dress, caressing an orphan
boy. She shall not be forgotten.