The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-08-03

! Mr. Woodruff during his travels all over
the world add to the attractiveness of
this big room.
The massive hand-carved furniture
tsome of it brought from Holland and
England by colonial settlers), the quaint
dishes and silver in the dining room; the
huge, four-poster beds and dressers have
been in the Woodruff family hundreds Of
years.
The most interesting room in this house
to me, however, was my hosts studio,
ton of all kinds of birds. eggs, insects.
butterflies and beetles from New England
and one of the rarest natural history Ii
brarieS in the east. Mr.. Woodruff is
an authority on and an author of natural
history subjects.
The 100-mile motor trip from New York
to the Woodruff country estate in Litch-
field, Conn, over perfect noads. past to-
bacco fields and hundreds of handsome
homes, was truly delightful.
Our hostess greeted us az beautiful ash
Grove" the home that has been in the
Woodruff family since before the revolu-
ton.
Its sweeping lawns, gnoves of ash trees
and orchards of apples and ounces were
tdlQ out Dy no lesser HISTORICAL inquire
than Aaron Burr, whose sister Sally mar
ried Judge Reeves. In 1874 this famous
judge had the first law school in Amer
lea, a small frame cabin built upon this
lawn. 1t was at this school that the
early legal lights of America learned
law. one of them future vice president
of the United States. Two later became
judges of the United States supreme
court, 40 judges of the highest state
nrtS nd SaVaral
men, cabinet and foreign ministers grad
uated from here. Among these was John
c. Calhoun, of whom the south is in
deed proud.
In fact, Litchfeld is so filled with in
teresting pre-revolutionary buildings and
houses that it is hard to know how to
confine my impressions of early Amer
icas most patriotic village" in short
newspaper article. Litchfield is the most
beautiful village 1 have ever seen, for
the descendants of the flowers of Wash
ington's army still own and keep up
wonderful estates like ash Grove" COM
ing up from the most fashionable and ex-
elusive sections of New York city in or
der to enjoy a quiet summer here. 1t
did my heart good to realize that there
was in this northland town the same
sort of splendid old fighting blood as we
have at home, the real American pride
and spirit that is going to help recon-
struct the Hun-ravished world at large.
The spinning room at Ash Grove is ex-
actly as it was in 1776. when shirts for
the revolutionary soldiers were spun on
the old looms. In the old fireplace, where
the queer old cranes and pot hooks still
hang, some of the bullets which helped
win Americas independence were cast
by bellies of Connecticut from the lead
obtained by melting the statue of King
George, which used to stand in New
York's Bowling Green.
In the room where this article is be-
ing written, George Washington stayed
during the revolution. One room was
used by Lafayette as his headquarters
during the war. These rooms stand today
exactly as they did then, and it was the
inspiration of this historical setting that
decided Mrs. Woodruff to write the musi-
cal comedy, "Eooray for the Girls and
donate the proceeds to the rebuilding OF
Lafayette's own country.
In fact, everything Mrs. Woodruff has
ever written has been inspired by a desire
to help some humanitarian project that
had awakened her heartfelt interest. She
has dedicated her talents to humanity,
aiding, it is said, humanity to greater
extent than any other writer of today.
Having been blind for several months
aroused her loving sympathy for those
who are shut away from the light, and
inspired 1.-THE Lady of the Lighthouse"
although she little dreamed that the great
work for the blind would receive such
an impetus through her narrative. More
than $500, 900 was raised for work for the
sightless through the sale of THE Lady
of the Lighthouse"
Next the Birmingham Children's hos
pital awakened her compassion, and "Mr.
Doctor Man." with it's chief character a
sick child, 80 moved the hearts of people
that money poured into that institution
for the contagious ward, now built.
How did you ever happen to know so
much about the necessities for prison re-
FORM" I asked Mrs. Woodruff, while
discussing 1.-The Imprisoned Freeman
for It is hard to associate prisons and
such grim realities with this dainty lady,
whose manner, as one New York paper
expressed it, suggests that never a hard
wind had been permitted to ruffle the
golden curls or sorrow come to dim
the blue, blue eyes"
why, last year." Mrs. Woodruff re-
piled in answer to my query, II met and
talked to a man who had been robbed by
the state of all possible happiness since
he was a boy of IS. At that time he
was arrested for a crime he did not
commit, and sentenced to two years i'm
prisonment. When that happened he was
a splendid, high-minded lad, filled with
youths idealistic dreams of future great
ness. He wanted and intended to make
his life count for helpfulness towards
others, but suddenly he was shut away in
a loathsome CELL deprived of everything
of humanzing influence. The occasional
men he saw and surreptiously talked to
were men coarsened and made brutal and
profane by long years of dissipation, dis
ease and crime. In that prison he lost
his virility, for beatings and abuse,
coupled with bread and water diets and
an underground cell, are not very con-
ducive to health. He lost also his dreams
for greatness in his determination to get
even with a civilization which could and
would impose such harsh injustice in the
name of the lawi OF course, when his
sentence was up and he took occasion to
get even by becoming a prey upon So
IL ~. he was apprehended sent up agar
and eventually became a confirmed
crook.
For days" continued Mrs. Woodruff, /
latter I talked to this man, now old
and broken with illness, I could not
get the shadow of the bars which had
so shattered his life. both physically
and spiritually, from my mind. My i'm
agination had been fired; the deepest
we'll of sympathy touched and it
seemed to me that as one of the atoms
composing that civilization, I was in
part responsible for his misfortune, I
began to read every book 1 could find
on penology and criminology. longed
to in some way atone for my share in
the wrecking of his life-for as atoms
we are each and every one of us to be
held accountable some day, somewhere /
for our share of the things done or left
undone and for all the wrongs of hu-
mainly"