The National tribune., 1903-03-19
VERY FEW OF THE TYPE LEFT.
Nanny Martha. a Respectable and Respect
ed colored Woman.

Last month there died here in town an
Oh coiored woman who had lived here so
many years that her memory went back
TO the days when she helped serve luach-
con to the Presidential party when the
hrst President Harrison was inausurated,
Her name was Mrs. Martha Landers, and
L never pass one middle-aged clubman
without remembering how she used to tell
me what noble child he was and how
he had cut his first teeth on her thimbIe.
Thirty years she served in one family,
sometimes as nurse, sometimes as cook,
sometimes as seamstreSs, and sometimes
as keeper of a lodging house downtown
owned by the family.
Blaine lodged there. and l have heard
her tell how lie came in one evening and
asked her to have his clothes ready, as he
might start for Maine in the morning
Man Ia LanderS Eot only got all his fresh
ly Numbered garments in order but sat
up to wash and iron all his soiled belong
inGs, so that he might have all lie possess
ed for his journey. She saved the life of
Gen. SCOTS wife by putting out tile fire
which had caught her vail from a candle
flame while Mrs. Scott was in the dress
ing-room of one of the houses in the ia
nous chain row. At one time she kept
the house in which the familiar picture
of the Grant family. with Miss Nelly
Grant on pony in the background, was
painted. and she used to tell with pride of
day when Gen. Grant stopped to shake
hands with her.
''She was housekeeper in Ninth street
once, and looking from her back window
saw John Wilkes Booths horse tied be-
hind the theater. just a few moments be-
fore Hannibal Hamlin's son came running
to the house to tell her that Lincoln had
been killed, and that the city was in ter
ror. She made shirts for l.. Q. &. Lamar,
and InnDlaraI tbau, with tba flo nd
cuffs unstarched, as was his way of wear
ing them. She was serving woman at
Chief Justice Glasses, and always declared
that Fashion left Washington when it had
no longer Miss Nettie Chase and Mrs.
Kate Chase Sprague to lead it. She was
laundress at Vice-President Morton's. and
could tell tales of the yice-President's
bath-towels. big as sheets, and of the say
ings and doings of his aforementioned
valet, MIR. Stubs. She has waited on
Lincoln himself-once when she went
down the river in a steamboat with the
President and party of his friends to at
tend the ladies. She had cooked for Gen.
Meigs and for Admiral Dahlgren.
'She had nursed this famous man and
that. The wonder always was to me that
no writer ever found her out, and made
of her "reminiscences n book of the side
of greatness that only servants see. There
would have been no scandal in it, for she
spoke ill of no one. but there would have
been a deal of matter that would have
ranked high among Westinghouse She
could neither read nor write but she was
free born at Rockville, and her instincts
were all those of a gentlewoman. / think
everybody who knew her must have loved
her. and l am sure that even the middle
aged gentleman who cut his teeth on her
silver thimble must have felt the loss of
friend when she died.
Nanny Martha knew her place and
kept it. She had no idea of being one Of
the quality among whom she lived, either
in this world or the next. One of her
favorite stories was of the negro who fell
into trance and on being revived declared
he had been to heaven.
And did you see many colOred folks
thereT somebody asked him.
LAW. no chile said he. Does you
suppose l wasted nah time fooling round
in the kitchen|"