The age-herald., 1899-01-13
Charmlna Mrs. Sampson.

The most interesting sketch of Mrs. Sampson, the wife of the rear-admiral ap- pears in Harpers and is as follows
 II was small boy who, in speaking his piece" the other day, made the not unnat- ural blunder of reciting-
 Wives of great men all remind us
 We can make our wives sublime
 Perhaps if the wives of great men were all like Mrs. William T. Sampson this sec ond edition of the poets words might com pare favorably with the original rem dering.
 A tall woman of digniied, even com mandng presence her simple and sincere nature is betrayed by habitua kindness of glance and speech
 In public and in private, from the high est to the humbest, all are with her i'm mediately at ease. No matter how weary, she never says less or more than the only right thing. This is due in part to the men, tai gifts which she possesses in large measure and in part to her genuine sym pathy with all whom she meets. One talks to Mrs. Sampson less of Cuba and more of one's self than would at first seem possible.
 There is one mother who will be rcceas- ingly grateful for this sympathy. It was the not uncommon story of impulsive son who hurried to Cuba on one of the fili- clustering expeditions and whose fate since then had been unknown. When Mrs. Samp son went to Havana to meet the admiral she determined if possible, to find some trace of this boy. Her constant inquiries were at last rewarded and a long letter full of minutest detail was sent, with a picture of his grave to the young mans mother. There is woman in America to whom she will never again be only "the wife of the admiral"
 Perhaps the memory of her own two young sons may have lain behind the other feeling. These boys, Ralph and Harold, merry, hearty, popular little chaps, repay her devotion in full. The affection of the admiral's four grown daughters, while less demonstrative, is not whit less sincere.
 Mrs. Sampson came to make her home in Glen Ridge, N. J., not as if she were bird of passage, but by interesting herself in the townspeople, the town and the church she has quickly become endeared to all who are privileged to be her friends and neighbors. She dislkes publicity, but accepts the in- evitable with good nature, and through the tTynB weeks or the war her courtesy to re- porters who were gentlemen was proverb- ial. Once in while an over-zealous young . journalist became unwarrantably intrusive, and he was not permitted to offend twice.
 Her delight is in helping her husbe1u with his piled-up official work and it is safe to say that the admiral nearly ex- hausted by the strain of the campaign, would have succumbed to illness in Cuba when sent to act upon the evacuation com mission had not his wife gone to him and assisted him by every means in her power. Afterwards whatever remaining time and strength she had were devoted to endeay- bring to better the condition of the stary ing poor outside Havana
 These simple facts-great things. all of them, in the realm of a woman's higher Hfe-are not set down in fulsome praise. Nothing would be more distasteful to the one of whom they are written. They are intended to outline a character that is a continual source of inspiration to many in the town which we gladly hear the ad- miraIs family speak of as "homes"