The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-01-05
Mother, can pillow and plant, can cut

Mother, I oan pillow and plant, I can cut
wood and milk tho COWS; want to live
here and will work real hard"
The boy kept his word. His was life
of toll, but love sweetened toll in the
widow Garfelds home, and her example
coupled with her affection for her children,
made them ambitious and industrious.
She worked bard and her children worked
with her. The wheatneld in which she
had buried her husbands body was not
fenced in. With her own hands she split
the rails and built the fence around 1t.
Toll as she would, her scanty supply of
provisions was fast becoming exhausted,
and she had no money to buy more. With
out letting her children know it, she put
them upon a daily allowance and when
she found the corn she had would not last
until the harvest time for all of them, she
denied herself portion, and lived upon
two, and then one meal u day. All this
time she worked in the field and taxed her
strength to the utmost TO save her chill
dren from want. They never felt it, but
she did, and she never lost the deep lines
Of care that anxi ty and hunger brought
upon her face in those early days of widow
hood They were tho honorable scars
which she received in fierce and noble
warfare against want.
She was dsvout member Of the Society
of Disciples. She instructed her children
Systematically in Bible study. The Sab
bath dag WAS kept holy. On Sunday in
that far West her Bible readings took thu
place of church service. On week days
she read fouf chapters regularly. and the
topics of conversation In the family circle
as they sat at their meals and a'hered
about tho evening fire were drawn from
the Bible. 1t was widow Garfield who
from her scanty acres gave the los fo- the
District school house, nor did she give her.
self rest until that house was built for the
educstion of her own, and her neighbors'
children.
James Garfield learned to be carpenter.
Hi first days pay, one dollar, he took
home to his mother and poured out the
pennies into her lap He was barefooted
and clothed in jean trousers of her manu-
fac ure, but in his heart he was the hap
pest and proudest OF boys. After her
boys left their home mother was their
load-star in all times and places. This
giimyse in O he Gal field homestead shows
far better than word, the Eerling char
acter of that mother
When Garfield was naugurated Presi-
dent, NJ arch 4tb, 1881, mother Garfield
rode with her dauRnIer-in-la law to The
capitol, sat in The mult.tude and saw her
son take the oath of office. After he had
reverently kissed tho Bible, which was
the well worn Bible his mother had used,
a d had seal ID his conf act with ii o ma
ton. wi n the eyes or The assembled
thousands fixed upon him to see what
next HE turned to his aged mother, who
had been unconscious1y weeping during
his inaugural address, and kissed her,
then he kissed his wife. The two per-
sens in all the world most Interested with
him in the event they had witnessed. A
most pathetic incident 1t had never
been so before. ,,,..,,,, va.o.ress--,o
Washington during that day, wherever
the new. of the Inauguration was flashed
ever the wires, throughout our own
country or in foreign lands, was heard
tie sentence: The President ks ed his
mother. 1t was the fitting irresistible
impulse of loyal son to a noble mother
manfully rendered in the face OF the
WhOlB world.
Mother Garfield went back to her home
i'll Ohio. In u few Weeks, July Pad, word
came that her son had been assassinateI in
Pennsylvania depot at Washington.
Wnh broken heart she cried out " he
Lord help me. How could any one DO so
cold b ARIEL "a to k il my babiY" Her son,
the foremost citizen Of The United States.
n leading statesman and Il man upon
who eloquence listening thousands had
I,ung with Dated breath, in that hour 10
that old mother was still her baby.
But lime bids us hasten to the fourth Of
Our selec ed American mothers
NANCY ALLISON MCKINLEY.
On the twelfth day Of December, 1897,
in an unpretending square frame wo story
house on West TuscarIwes street, Canton,
OHIO, Nancy Allison Mckinley, the
mother Of President Mckinley, brea! he'd
her last
For days that homo had been the centre
of curnest national inquiry and anxious
expectation. She was an old woman; had
been stricken with paralysis, but waS smil
heroic struggle with death
} lust Mt the opening of Congress her son
sped from Washington to her bedside. lie
hoped to find his mother alive. As the
President and his wife enterad tho cham
Der Of death, that little upper room so
sacred 0 him, his sister Helin Mckinley
said, Mo her here are William and Ida"
He knolt by his mothers bedside, kissed
her tcnderly and revorently, aud as he did
So she put her arm about his neck and
that she knew him. Deathless
motherhood had toucheu the secret springs
of her life again. and she who had been
hitherto speechless and insensib.e quick
ened to life TO greet her great son. The
Chronicler says st seemed to friends
watching at the bedside, that she had
been waiting for the arrival of her sou -"
For soon the reafter she lapsed into I'M
and d,d not revive again
until death released her from suffering
The patient devotion, the sleepless watch
fulncSs Of that son at her bedside are TOO
recent to need further co mment
Suffice 1t to say thai the nations voice
Was one in this, that one of the best and
hottest of sons in that chamber of death
Was the highest expression of his noble
mother William Mckinley to day is the
President of tho United Staes because
Nancy Allison Mckinley his mother, was
in every line of her life one of The noblest
cf mothers and the best Of women real
type Of American motherhood. The men,
Dry of her life and virtue are too well
known to need further comment. Few
sons ever had u more lovely or devoted
mother, and no mother more dutiful or
son. 1t was common ex.
preston with her to say, William was
always u good boy"
1t Is more than u co medicines to find the
lnothera of our first and last presidents
using much the same language. Mary
Washington said g, gorge had always been
n good SOM" Nancy Allison Mckinley
said civilian was always n good boy. =
Those were the involuntary ubterances Of
devoted mothers, to whom these great III, n
were still the mothers son and the
mothers boy.
TO me this motherhood review has been
a labor of love. 1t would be
pleasure to dwell upon these four typical
lives by tho hour; but you must not be-
wcaried even in the charmed circls of u
mother all comprising love by prolixity.
These four are only well-known types Of
American motherhood, but the homes of
teen with mothers fully their
equals In fearless devotion to that hOliest
aud most sacred relation of life. Their
lives may not have been spread upon the
pages Of history, nor blazon ed to the
world, because IL has not come to their
sons to stand in the sunlight of exception
al greatness. But In moulding the ma
TONS life, in giving vital power to every
agency for our national uplifting, in
training, moulding and fasbioning men
to meet every emergency, these mothers
have made our republic u possibility.
Mother means home Home means all
shat is dear to every right thinking Amer
loan. Home is peculiarly n word of English
origin and finds no place In many Euro.
poan languages; nor Is there such place
rs home in their national lives.
If we shall succeed in holding our ship
81 State to her mooring, W that she shall
net founder upon the rocks whereon other
nations have been wrecked in the past, 1t
will be because Of our greater reverence
Tor our homes, and because they are better
guarded aud protected and thnt our moth
Frs continue to be more intelligrHC ana VII.
tuOus than of old.
We need not fbnr for the gAfAty of thA