The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1914-12-08
OWED
MUCH To WIFE
Talent as Humorist Discovered
By Her and She Ever
Inspired Him

The death Of Robert j. Burdette at
his Pasadena. Cal, home, recalls
tina he was the last Of the line
Of humorists who kept the coun-
try laughing for forty years after
the Civil War period. The spirit OF
those times produced such fun
makers as Artemus Ward, Josh Bill
lings, Mrs. Darlington, Mark Twain,
Eli Perkins, James NJ. Bailey( the
Danbury News MANI, Bill Nye and
Eugene Field. They have passed
ahead of him, but he belongs as much
as they to another generation, for
when he turned preacher twenty-five
years ago he was in mortal fear Of
bringing ridicule upon that profess
sion by carrying into it his reputation
as a humorist, so he quit joking when
he mounted the pulpit.
Having been born with the capa-
city of seeing fun in everything" he
once said, in commenting on his
avoidance Of pulpit mirth, Il needed
all my will to resist the temptation
to say things that were yelling up
in me, but I knew it would not do
for me. In another, who is not ex-
pected to be funny, a joke in the
pulpit is not out. of place, in my
opinion. I believe with Henry Ward
Beacher, who said: When you I
fighting h devil, shoot him with
anything
"All thes anne Z couldn't afford to
have the slightest appearance Of
drawing congregations on account of
my ability to be funny. My view of
life remained unchanged, but I could
not parade it in church."
Through War In Ranks.
Burdette went through the Civil
War in the ranks, emerging a pri-
vate, as he went in. His home at
enlistment was Peoria, ILL.,. and after
his discharge he came to New York
n made his start in civil life as
New York correspondent Of the
Peoria Transcript. Returns from
that work could not pay his small ~
| penSes, and he tried "fr~ee-lancing'
i'll magazines and newspapers. In
| 1870 he was upstate and met Miss
Carrie Garrett, Of Honeoye Falls, near
Canandaigua. Swift courtship OF his
manifest distiny," as he said. led te
marriage. She had been pronounced
a hopeless invalid, with an affliction
that partially ~paralyzed her, and this
became complicated with heart
disease that threatened to be fatal
Following the wedding she rallied
and in a few weeks Burdette took hel
to Peoria, where the position OF cit,
editor 'on the Transcript had beer
offered to him.
Wife Inspires Him.
Mrs. Burdette survived for nearly
twenty years, and their devotion wa
touching. Burdette called his his
Little Serene Highness." It was t.
her inspiration hat he owed hi
funny writings. While at his dali,
grind he used to think out funn,
things to enliven her sick-room ant
jot them down on paper n rea
fHo~o - h4~ Oh s~r@A>l 49, =
ought to print them. When he frs
yielded to her advice and ran a few
Quips in the Transcript he nearly los
his Job, the proprietors having a yer
stern sense Of the solemn mission o
a newspaper. Readers laughed a
them, however, and when op%portunit
came for him to buy the Peoria Re
view he let his fun loose, and tn
Burlington Hawkeye made a bid 70
him as a paragrapher.
!. His reputation grew so fast wit
the Hawkeye hat his Little Seren
Highness' urged him to add to 1t an
: to his income by featuring. She fin
ally persuaded him by the clinch
ing reason that if chose fellows
' could.
Il rebelled with tears and groan
and prayers" Burdette aid intellin
: Of that experience. Il told her / wa
TOO little, that l had no voice, that
couldn't write a funny lecture an,
how. She kept me at it, and in du
time we had the lecture on our hand
The Rise and Fall Of the Mustache
That was all right enough: now. no,
to get the audience.
. II thought 1 would try it first {
keokuk. II I delivered it first i
burlington, even though it wei
- tame, I thought they might pat m
= on the back. Keokuk hated Burlin,
y ton. | thought. il it's fiat, the Keoku
y PEOPLE will tell me SO. Mrs. Burdet1
= said that, as she was +,
that lecture, she was going to he;
q Its first delivery. So I carried h,
aboard the cars. we went down
Keokuk, and they pronounced
good"
his companion on Lecture Tours.
Mrs. Burdett accompanied h,
husband to that and other lecture
She was still almost as helnle
n physically as a child. He carried h,
a IN his arms to and from the cars