Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1895-05-03
A HEROIC STRUGGLE
FREDERICK DOUGLASS ROMAN
TIC CAREER.
Miss Susan b. Anthony's RecolIections
of the Anti-Slavery Leader-Anecdotes
of His Life in Captivity and Free
dom.

| tAe ldIe rEeueIlCh DOuSldSS III uiS lllS
| work none is more distinguished than
| Miss Susan B. Anthony, Of Rochester,
N. T., says a writer in the New York
Mail and Express.
| In speaking to me regarding the dead
leader, the other day, Miss Anthony
said: Il first came to know Frederick
Douglass in 1S47 in Rochester, my ma
tive city. My father was Quaker,
who had large farm, and Douglass
was a poor young married man, who
lived nearer the city. There was an
anti-slavery sewing circle which met
in his home, which consisted of some
thirty or forty people. My father used
to harness up his. team and would drive
US over, and we would sew and talk
and plan and then generally would
bring the Douglasses back to dinner
or supper at our house. AT that time
Douglass was tall, powerful and at
tractive young man of very striking
personal appearance. He has none OF
the typical features of the African,
but, if possible, resembled an Indian
warrior. He was erect, very vigorous,
with long straight nose, high cheek
bones, good forehead and almost
name rather than an ordinary head of
hair. He worked hard, harder than
most people ever dream of. He studied
and burned the midnight oil and tried
to make himself the intellectual peer
of the highest in the world. This in
tense ambition was devoid of all
selfish attribute. do not think he had
any desire to become great himself nor
to win name and fame, but he under
took this seemingly hopeless task
merely to enable himself to properly
present and discuss the ideas in which
he believed. He had marvellous pa
tience and wonderful memory. In
some respects he was slow in acquiring,
but when he once mastered thing he
never forgot it. His wife was black
woman, kind, gentle and affectionate.
My mother said that she was the best
housekeeper in Rochester, and in mat
ters of that sort my mother was an ex-
pert. Although the Douglass family
were very poor, yet their home was
exquisitely neat and clean, and the
children, though poorly dressed, were
always nice looking and presentable.
Frederick Douglass tried his best to
educate his wife, and he set aside
ual training. He succeeded in part and
failed in part. Somehow or other she
could never learn to read or write, but,
on the other hand, her memory was at
times phenomenal, and she would pick
up vast masses of facts and informa-
ton and have them at her tongues
tip. Her inability to acquire the rudi-
ments caused her husband consider
able regret in the beginning, but in the
course of time he saw that it could not
be halped, and so he yielded to the in
evitable. She was an extremely good |
wife and mother, and he was an ideal
husband and father. The love story |
of his life was often told to his dearest |
friends in the pathetic way in which he
alone possessed of all the abolition war
riors Of the day. He told how his wife. |
then young and pretty black girl,
was freed slave; how she became I
touched with his fervent purpose to be-
come educated; how she used to watch
him while in the slave drive and keep
an eye upon his every movement. One
day she approached him and told him
she had saved up all her earnings; that
she had sold all her belongings, and she
wanted him to run away North with
this @money. He refused and refused
again, and it was not until she told him
that he could return the money, and
that she loved him more than all the
world that he accepted her aid and car
ried out her plans. Mr.. Douglass has
often remarked that it was this woman,
his first love, who was responsible for
his life 1t may seem strange, but he
has also said that just as his story OF
slavery was to have turned the point
pf feeling and aided in ending the en-
slavement of the negro, so, on her part
was this woman responsible for all that
came thereafter through him to benefit
humanity or the colored race. He would
forcibly emphasize the fact that his
wife and not himself, was responsible
Tor the good he accomplished, as the
first plans were hers, and she had
earned the means of carrying them out.
As soon as ever he got money enough
,ogether he returned the loan, and sent
With it sufficient funds for her to come
md join him. They were married
,uietly, and wherever he went she was
With him. During the troublous times
when he was still fugitive slave, when
le was property and might at any time
lave been returned to his master, his
wife acted as sort of private detect
We and watched him wherever he
vent, kept her eye upon every person
within nail, and upon every caller
o the house. In speaking of his flight
rom bondage. he said: From the time
was little boy I did nothing but
earn for freedom and pray for it. |
lsed to go out in the corntield and
,neel down and pray with vague be-
ief that the Lord would hear me and
omething would occur, and night and
by my bed did the same
hing AS years rolled by | became '
earful that my prayers were of no
wall, and that slavery and sorrow
we're to be my lot all my life; and it
vas not until then that / made up my {
mind TO run away.
and" said Miss Anthony, II told
lin that when he prayed with his heels
va found ont that the ord answered |