The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-18
WHAT SHE IS LIKE.


L wish I could show you Mrs. Green as
she chatted with me after her business
callers had gone. She is a far different
woman than the one you know in the news
papers. She makes me think of one of the
good old mothers whom you will find by
the dozen in almost any country town, a
woman who has brought up a family and
done it WELL and who now in her sixties,
although her life has been a hard one, is
still in sympathy with humanity and is
ready to battle on to the close. I don't
believe a woman can have a face like
Hetty Green's and not have a heart prone
to sympathy and love. Her eyes are blue
and friendly Her mouth, though deter
mined, has motherly lines about it, and a
strong character shines out of her every
feature. She is still fine looking, and she
must have been a most beautiful girl Dur
ing my chat she showed nae some daguer-
reotypes taken of herself when she was the
daughter of the millionaire Robinson. In
an transformations way she told me some
thing of her simple life before her father
died and how she was forced into business
by having to fight the biggest lawyers of
the country for her estate. Mrs. Green
dresses very plainly. The costume she
wore yesterday would not have been out of
place upon the motherly old lady whom
referred to above. Her dress waist was of
some black goods, trimmed with velvet
which was rather rusty than new. The
skirt was a sateen of black spotted with
white. and upon her head she wore a veil,
which was twisted about so as to look like
a cap Although she speaks four languages
the words she used were plain Anglo-Sax-
on, and she never hesitated to call a spade
a spade. She has a Slight Yankee accent,
which comes, L suppose, from her having
been raised in Vermont. There was not the
slightest affectation about her. l did not
see an atom of the trickiness hardness
or of the suspicious character usually as
ISOLATED with the descriptions of her. 1
found her, in fact, rather modest than
anything else.
One of my first questions was as to
when she first discovered that she had
business ability. She replied:
II don't know that 1 have much business
ability, but such business ability as 1 pos
sess has been developed by the necessity of
taking care of my fortune. You see, 1 was
not born poor. We have been rich for
three generations. The house in which /
was born in Vermont had twenty-five
rooms and two bath rooms. and my father,
grandfather and great-grandfather We're
rich. The first idea that ever got of bust
ness was from my grandfather. l used to
help him in his correspondence, and alb
sorbed some of his business methods. Still.
I had nothing really to Go with business
until my father died"
1T was then that you began your fight
with the lawyers, was it not?'
Yes" replied Mrs. Green. 1T was that
fight that has made me a business woman.
You see, the lawyers tried to swallow up
the estate. 1 let them go along for a time.
but l soon saw that l could trust only my
self. I was forced into the studying up of
financial matters. and L had TO take every
thing INTO my own hands. 1 had to learn
step b. step and at the same time to fight
my way in the courts. I have been lighting
for the last thirty years, and have not
finished yet"
But 1 should th:nk you would get tired