Read Ebook: The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation by Nation Carry Amelia

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 905 lines and 99329 words, and 19 pages

I remember how shocked I would be to think I would ever be like that naughty Sarah.

A positive indication of a corrupt age is the lack of respect children have for parents. This is largely owing to the neglect of teachers. I am heartily thankful I was taught to say 'Yes Ma'am, and 'No, ma'am,' 'Yes, Sir, and No, Sir.' Now it is--'Yah! Yes, No, What, etc. Nothing is a greater letter of credit than politeness and it costs nothing. T'is not the child's fault but the parents and teachers.

I was, when a child, always doing something; was very fond of climbing; seemed to have a mania for it. I never saw a tall tree that I did not try to climb, or wish I could. I used to run bareheaded over the fields and woods with the other children, lifting up rocks and logs to look at the bugs and worms. When we found a dead chicken, bird, rat or mouse, we would have a funeral. I would usually be the preacher and we would kneel down and while one prayed, the rest would look through their fingers, to see what the others were doing. We would sing and clap our hands and shake hands, then we would play: "Come and see."

I never had but one doll, bought out of a store, it was given to me by Dr. Jackson for taking my medicine, when I was sick. We made rag dolls out of dresses. My delight was to have one of the colored women's babies. We would go visiting and take our dolls, and would tell of the dreadful times we had and of how mean our husbands were to the children; sometimes one would tell of how good instead. And then we would catch bees in the althea blooms. One of the delightful pastimes was to make mud cakes and put them on boards to dry. We had some clay that we could mould anything out of--all kind of animals, and, indeed, there were shapes worked out by little fingers never seen before.

The race question is a serious one. The kindly feeling between black and white is giving place to bitterness with the rising generations. One reason of this seems to be a jealousy of the whites for fear the negroes will presume to be socially equal with them. The negro race should avoid this, should not desire it, it would be of no real value to them. They are a distinct race with characteristics which they need not wish to exchange. When a negro tries to imitate white folks, he is a mongrel. I will say to my colored brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus; Never depart from your race lines and bearings, keep true to your nature, your simplicity, and happy disposition--and above all come back to the 'Oldtime' religion, you will never strand on that rock.

In 1854, we moved to Woodford County, Kentucky, and bought a farm from Mr. Hibler, on the pike, between Midway and Versailles. Mr. Warren Viley was our nearest neighbor. My father was one of the trustees in building the Orphans' Home at Midway. Here in Midway I attended Sunday school and I had a very faithful teacher who taught me the Word of God. I have forgotten her name but I can see her sweet face now, as she planted seed in my heart that are still bringing forth fruit.

A minister came to our house one day and gave me a book to read, which made a very deep impression on me. As well as I can remember it was called: "The Children of the Heavenly King." This story represented three brothers, one, the youngest, was named Ezra, the other Ulrich, the third I forget. These three were intrusted with watching certain passes in the mountains during the warfare between a great, good king, and a bad one, and in proportion as these boys were faithful, the good king was victorious in battle, but when they neglected their duty, he would suffer loss. The character of little Ezra was a sweet, unselfish one. He tried so hard to help, and have his brothers do right. He would run from his post to wake them up, and tried to make up for their neglect; would do without rest and food for himself, and plead with them to do their duty. At last, when the king came, little Ezra was richly rewarded; Ulrich barely passed, and the unfaithful one was taken out amidst weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, and the door was shut. The minister did not know what good he had done.

"Only a thought, but the work it wrought, Could never by tongue or pen be taught; For it ran thro' a life, like a thread of gold, And the life bore fruit, an hundred fold. Only a word, but it was spoken in love, With a whispered prayer to the Lord above; And the angels in heaven rejoiced once more For a new-born soul entered in, at the door."

I resolved to be like little Ezra as near as I could. When I was a child I fought against my selfish nature. I would often give away my doll clothes and other things that I wanted to keep myself. Some of the strongest characteristics of my life were awakened in my childhood. I would often blush with shame, when committing sins, and I had a great fear of the judgement day; it would terrify me when hearing of Jesus coming to the earth. I would often ask myself: "Where can I hide?" If the public knew of the smashing God gave me the strength to do in my heart, they would not wonder at my courage in smashing the murder- shops of our land. "He that ruleth his own spirit, is greater than he that taketh a city."

In 1855, we moved to Missouri, just a year before the trouble broke out between Kansas and Missouri. Missouri determined to make Kansas a slave state; but Kansas said she would not have a slave upon her soil. Squads of men in Missouri would often go into Kansas and commit depredations. At one time they burned Lawrence, Kansas, and killed many people. This trouble continued to grow worse until it brought on the great Civil War.

When we moved from Kentucky to Missouri, I took a severe cold on the boat, which made me an invalid for years. I was not a truthful child, neither was I honest. My mother was very strict with me in many ways and I would often tell her lies to avoid restraint or punishment. If there was anything I wanted about the house, especially something to eat, I would steal it, if I could. The colored servants would often ask me to steal things for them. My nurse Betsy, would say: "Carry get me a cup of sugar, butter, thread or needles," and many other things. This would make me sly and dishonest. I used to go and see my aunts and stay for months. I would open their boxes and bureau drawers and steal ribbons and laces and make doll clothes out of them. I would steal perfumery and would run out of the room to prevent them from smelling it. I am telling this for a purpose. Many little children may be doing what I did, not thinking of what a serious thing it is, and I write this to show them how I was cured of dishonesty: I got a little book at Sunday school and it told the way people became thieves, by beginning to take little things naming them, and some of these were the very things I had been taking. I was greatly shocked to see myself a thief; it had never occurred to me that I was as bad as that. I thought one had to steal something of great value to be a thief. My repentance was sincere, and I was made honest by this blessed book, so much so that even after I became grown, if any article was left in my house I would give it away, unless I could find the owner. I was perfectly delighted when I was entirely free. I asked for everything I wanted, even a pin. After that, I could show my doll clothes, and it was not necessary for me to be sly or tell stories any more. It was about this time I was converted. There was a protracted meeting at a place called Hickman's Mill, Jackson County, Missouri. The minister was gray haired and belonged to the Christian or Disciples church, the one my father belonged to. I was at this time ten years old and went with my father to church on Lord's Day morning. At the close of the sermon, and during the invitation, my father stepped to the pulpit and spoke to the minister and he looked over in my direction. At this I began to weep bitterly, seemed to be taken up, and sat down on the front bench. I could not have told any one what I wept for, except it was a longing to be better. I had often thought before this that I was in danger of going to the "Bad place," especially I would be afraid to think of the time that I should see Jesus come. I wanted to hide from Him. My father had a cousin living at Hickman's Mill, Ben Robertson. His wife, cousin Jennie, came up to me at the close of the service, and said: "Carry, I believe you know what you are doing." But I did not. Oh, how I wanted some one to explain to me. The next day I was taken to a running stream about two miles away, and, although it was quite cold and some ice in the water, I felt no fear. It seemed like a dream. I know God will bless the ordinance of baptism, for the little Carry that walked into the water was different from the one who walked out. I said no word. I felt that I could not speak, for fear of disturbing the peace that is past understanding. Kind hands wrapped me up and I felt no chill. I felt the responsibility of my new relation and tried hard to do right.

A few days after this I was at my aunt Kate Doneghy's. Uncle James, or "Jim," we called him, her husband, was not a Christian. He shocked me one day by saying: "So those Campbellites took you to the creek, and soused you, did they 'Cal'?" What a blow! My aunt seemed also shocked to have him speak thus to me. I left the room and avoided meeting him again. How he crushed me! It had the effect to make me feel like a criminal.

The Protestant Church here makes a fatal error which the Catholics avoid. The ministers of the latter have all young converts come so often to them for instruction. A child may be born, but not being nursed and fed, it will die. God has command them to be fed in the sincere milk of the word. My greatest hindrance has been from the lack of proper Christian teaching. I love the memory of my father, he used to have me read the bible to him, and while I did not enjoy it then, it is a blessed memory. The family altar is essential to the welfare of every home, no other form of discipline is equal to it. The liberty, chivalry, and life of a nation live or die in proportion as the Altar fires live or die.

"And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up."

When I was fifteen, the war broke out between the north and the south. My father saw that Missouri would be the battle ground and he, with many others, took their families and negroes and went south, taking what they could in wagons, for there were no railroads then in that section. There was quite a train with the droves of cattle, mules and horses. One wagon had six yoke of oxen to it; had to get into it by a ladder, the kind that was used to freight across the plains. The family went in the family carriage that my father brought from Kentucky. I remember the time when this carriage was purchased, with the two dapple gray horses, and silver mounted harness, and when my mother would drive out she had a driver in broadcloth, with a high silk hat, and a boy rode on a seat behind, to open the gates. This was one of the ways of traveling in Kentucky in those days. My mother was an aristocrat in her ideas, but my father was not. He liked no display. He was wise enough to see the sin and folly of it.

After being on the road six weeks, we stopped in Grayson County, Texas, and bought a farm. As we started from Missouri one of the colored women took sick with typhoid fever. This spread so that ten of the family, white, and black, were down at one time. As soon as we could travel, my father left the colored people south, and took his family back to Missouri. That winter south was a great blessing to me, for I recovered from a disease that had made me an invalid for five years-- consumption of the bowels. Poor health had keep me out of school a great deal. My father at one time sent me to Mrs. Tillery's boarding school in Independence, Mo., but I was not in the recitation room more than half of the time.

After I recovered my health in Texas, it was my delight to ride on horseback with a girl friend. The southern boys were preparing to go to war. Many a sewing did we attend, where the mothers had spun and woven the gray cloth that they were now working up so sorrowfully for their sons to be buried in, far away from home. They thought their cause was right. There were many good masters. And again there were bad ones. Whiskey is always a cruel tyrant and is a worse evil than chattel slavery. We were often stopped on our trip by southern troops, in the Territory and Texas, and then again by northerners. We passed over the Pea Ridge battle ground shortly after the battle. Oh! the horrors of war. We often stopped at houses where the wounded were. We let them have our pillows and every bit of bedding we could spare. We went to our home in Cass County, Missouri.

Shortly after this we, with all families living in that country, were commanded by an order from Jim Lane, to move into an army post. This reached several counties in Missouri. It was done to depopulate the country, so that the "Bushwhackers" would be forced to leave, because of not being able to get food from the citizens. This caused much suffering. But such is war. We moved to Kansas City. I was in Independence, Mo., during the battle, when Price came through. I went with a good woman to the hospital to help with the wounded. My duty was to comb the heads of the wounded. I had a pan of scalding water near and would use the comb and shake off the animated nature into the hot water. The southern and northern wounded were in the same rooms. In health they were enemies, but I only saw kindly feeling and sympathy.

Mothers ought to give their daughters the experience of sitting with the sick; of preparing food for them; of binding up wounds. It is a pitiful sight to see a helpless woman in the sick room, ignorant through lack of experience and education, of ways to be useful at the time and place where these characteristics of woman adorn her the most of all others.

After we returned from Texas, being the oldest child and the servants all gone, my mother sick, and the younger children going to school, I had the house work, cooking and most of the washing to do. It was a new experience for me, and it was twice as hard as it ought to have been. I exposed my health; would slop up myself when I washed, and almost ruined my health, because I had not been properly educated. Herein was the curse of slavery. My father saw this, and I don't believe he had a regret when the slaves were free. Mother, it matters not what else you teach your daughters, if they have not an experience in doing the work themselves about a home, they are sadly deficient. It is not the soft, palefaced, painted, fashionable lady we want, for the world would be better without her; but the woman capable of knowing how, and willing to take a place in the home affairs of life. It is an ambition of mine to establish a Preparatory College in Topeka, Kansas, where girls may be taught, as women should be, that they in turn may teach others, how to wash, cook, scrub, dress and talk, to counteract the idea that woman is a toy, pretty doll, with no will power of her own, only a parrot, a parasite of a man. To be womanly, means strength of character, virtue and a power for good. Let your women be teachers of good things, says the Holy Spirit.

The last school I attended was at Liberty, Missouri, taught by Mr. and Mrs. Love. Only went there a year, but it was of untold value to me. I was so eager to get an education. On account of ill health and the war, I knew but little. I wanted a thorough education. I had read a good many books, and would write sketches; kept a diary part of the time.

I will here relate an incident that will give my readers a little insight into my impulses. At Liberty School we had a class in Smellie's "Natural Philosophy." There was an argument among the girls. Some said animals had reasoning faculties. Others said not. Miss Jennie Johnson, our teacher, said: "Have that for a question to debate on in your society." So it was ordered. I was given the affirmative. The Friday came. I was taken by surprise and was in confusion, when I saw the room crowded. The two other societies of the Seminary, "The Mary Lyons" and "Rising Star," also all the teachers, were present. Our Society was the "Eunomian". I had made no preparations. When I was called I know I looked ridiculously blank. The president tried to keep her face straight. I got no farther than, "Miss President". All burst out in uncontrollable laughter. I went to my seat put my face in my arms and turned my back to the audience. I wept with tears of humiliation. I felt disgraced. I thought of what a shame this would be to my parents. How ever after this I must be considered a "Silly" by my schoolmates. These things nerved me. I dried my tears, turned around in my seat, looked up, and the moral force it required to do this was almost equal to that which smashed a saloon. I arose and said: "Miss President, I am ready to state my case." I began in this style: "I know animals have the power to reason for my brothers cured a dog from sucking eggs by having him take a hot one in his mouth, and it was the last egg we ever knew him to pick up. Why? Because he remembered the hot one and reasoned that he might get burned. Why is it that a horse will like one person more than another? Because he is capable of reasoning and knows who is the best to him." I went on in this homely style and spoke with a vehemence which said: "I will make my point," which I did amidst the cheers of the school. I was eighteen at this time and you would say: "You must have been rather green." So I was in some things.

I believe I have always failed in everything I undertook to do the first time, but I learned only by experience, paid dearly for it, and valued it afterwards. My failures have been my best teachers. I see no one more awkward than I once was, but I had determined to conquer. My defects were the great incentives to perseverance, when I felt I was right.

I shall not in this book speak much of my love affairs, but they were, nevertheless, an important part of my life. I was a great lover. I used to think a person never could love but once in this life, but I often now say, I would not want a heart that could hold but one love. It was not the beauty of face or form that was the most attractive to me in young gentlemen, or ladies, but that of the mind. Seeing this the case with myself, I tried to acquire knowledge to make my company agreeable. I see young ladies, and gentlemen, who entertain each other with their silly jokes and gigglings that are disgusting. When I had company I always directed the conversation so that my friend would teach me something, or I would teach him. I would read the poets, and Scott's writings and history. Read Josephus, mythology and the Bible together, and never read a course that taught me as much. I would go to the country dances and sometimes to balls in the City. The church did not object to this: I would teach Sunday school at the same time. No one taught me that this was wrong. One thing was a tower of defense to me. I always, when possible, read the Bible and would pray. After retiring would get up and kneel, feeling that to pray in bed only, was disrespectful to God. If the angels in heaven would prostrate themselves before Him, I a poor sinner should. And right here, I believe in "advancing on your knees." Abraham prostrated himself, so did David and Solomon, Elijah, Daniel, Paul, and even our sinless Advocate. Why did the Holy Ghost state the position so often? For our example, of course. There are no space writers in the Scriptures. I often had doubts as to whether the Bible was the work of God or man. I kept these doubts to myself, for I thought infidelity a disgrace. I wanted to believe the Bible the word of God. I early saw that to close the Bible was to shut out all knowledge of the purpose of life. Without its revelations one does not know why we are born, why we live, or where we go after death. We can see the purpose of all nature, but not of this life of ours, and God had, by revelation, to make this known.

I do not believe the Bible because I understand it; for there are few things of revelation that I do understand. Creation is a mystery, still we know everything had a beginning. I do not know why things grow out of the earth. Why they are green. Why grass makes wool on a sheep and hair on a cow, but I know these are facts. I cannot understand why or how the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from sin, neither do I understand that greatest of all mysteries, the new birth, but nothing more positively a fact in my experience.

God is not perceived by the five senses. The things that are seen are temporal, but those that are unseen are eternal. What a sin of presumption to question God in any of His providences. What God says and does is wisdom, righteousness and power.

The book of Psalms condemned me. I said, I never felt like David. I cannot rejoice. Still I felt that I ought to, but instead, a constant feeling of condemnation and conviction. This was torture to me. I would often have been willing to have died, if I thought it would have been an eternal sleep. My childhood and girlhood were not happy; had so many disappointments. I was called "hard headed" by my parents. I never was free to have what I wished; something would come between me and what I wanted. No one understood me so well as my darling aunt Hope Hill, my mother's sister. She seemed to read me and would talk to me of persons and things, answering the very cry of my heart. My mother would often let me stay with her for months. She had five sons, but no daughters and she was very fond of me. This lesson she taught me: A party of ladies came out from Independence to spend the day with her. Mrs. Woodson and a Mrs. Porter, wife of Dr. Porter, I remember the latter, one of the handsomest women I ever saw, beautiful feet, hands, hair, and a woman who knew it, and, it was a mater of the greatest pride with her, these charms. I was very much captivated by her splendid appearance and could not keep my eyes from her. Next day Mrs. John Staton, a country neighbor of my aunts, came in to make a visit, She was very plain, wore a calico dress, waist-apron, and she was knitting a sock. After she left aunt said to me: "Carry, you did not seem to like Mrs. Staton's society as you did Mrs. Porter's; but one sentence of Mrs. Staton's is worth all Mrs. Porter said. Mrs. Porter lives for this world, Mrs. Staton lives for God." This Lesson I did not learn then, but have since. Oh! for the old-fashioned women.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH SPIRITUALISM.

Just at the close of the war when we were on a farm in Cass County, Missouri, a colony of spiritualists were near us, Mrs. Hawkins, the medium was about 60 years old, very peculiar, and finely educated. My father had some farms he was selling for other people. He took Mrs. Hawkins and several of her company to look at a farm with a view of selling it. When she saw it from a hill some distance off she said: "That is the place I saw in Connecticut." She bought it for a town site. In writing to Washington to give it a name, the word "Peculiar" was selected, and so it has ever been called. Mrs. Hawkins took a great fancy to me. She would tell me of great things she had done, then say: "Could Jesus Christ have done more?" I had never heard of Spiritualism that I knew of, up to this time. This colony brought mechanics, merchants and musicians with them. I was in great confusion about this matter, not knowing what to think, for she did some superhuman things. Up stairs we had a large safe full of old books. I was looking over them one day, came to a little book called "Spiritualism Exposed". I immediately went to the orchard, sat under a tree, as my custom was, when I wished to read, for there I could be quiet. I read the little book through, before I stopped. This blessed lesson showed me to my entire satisfaction, that modern spiritualism is witchcraft. The writer took the instances in the Bible. God told Moses: "You must not suffer a witch to live;" see it at the court of Pharoah, and that they have "superhuman power." There are two kingdoms. One of darkness, and one of light. God rules in the latter; The Devil in the former. Both have powers above the power of man. The magicians at Pharoah's court were wizards; and the woman of Endor was a witch. The Bible speaks of dealing with "familiar spirits." Manasseh, Saul, and other Kings, were cursed for such. Gal. 5th has it as one of the "mortal sins." The Devil can do lying miracles to deceive. He will heal the body, or appear to do it, to damn the soul. I find this in "Christian Science." This is the mark of the "Beast" or carnal mind. Man is but a beast without the new birth, or spirit of God. Carnality always seeks to elevate itself. Grace is humble, and sees nothing good outside of God. The mark of the beast, is the number, or mark of a man; that is carnality or the Beast. Rev. 13:18.

MY FIRST MARRIAGE.--A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT.--MOTHER GLOYD.--MY DRUGGED AND WHISKEY MURDERED HUSBAND.--LOSING MY POSITION AS TEACHER.--SECOND MARRIAGE.--LOSS OF PROPERTY.--KEEPING HOTEL.-- STRUGGLES FOR DAILY FOOD.--THE AFFLICTIONS OF MY CHILD.--ANSWER TO PRAYER.

In the fall of 1865, Dr. Gloyd, a young physician, called to see my father to secure the country school, saying he wished to locate in our section of the country, and wanted to take a school that winter, and then he could decide where he would like to practice his profession.

This man was a thorough student, spoke, and read, several different languages; he boarded with. I liked him, and stood in awe of him because of his superior education, never thinking that he loved me, until he astonished me one evening by kissing me. I had never had a gentleman to take such a privilege and felt shocked, threw up my hands to my face, saying several times: "I am ruined." My aunt and mother had instilled great reserve in my actions, when in company of gentlemen, so much so that I had never allowed one to sit near or hold my hand. This was not because I did not like their society, but I had been taught that to inspire respect or love from a man, you must keep him at a distance. This often made me awkward and reserved, but it did me no harm. When I learned that Dr. Gloyd loved me, I began to love him. He was an only child. His parents had but a modest living. My mother was not pleased with seeing a growing attachment between us, for there was another match she had planned for me. When she saw this she would not allow me to sit alone in the room with him, so our communication was mostly by writing letters. I never knew Shakespeare until he read it to me, and I became an ardent admirer of the greatest poet. The volume of Shakespeare on his table was our postoffice. In the morning at breakfast he would manage to call the name "Shakespeare;" then I would know there was a letter for me in its leaves. After teaching three months he went to Holden, Mo., and located; sent for his father and mother and in two years we were married.

My father and mother warned me that the doctor was addicted to drink, but I had no idea of the curse of rum. I did not fear anything, for I was in love, and doubted in him nothing. When Dr. Gloyd came up to marry me the 21st of November, 1867, I noticed with pain, that his countenance was not bright, he was changed. The day was one of the gloomiest I ever saw, a mist fell, and not a ray of sunshine. I felt a foreboding on the day I had looked forward to, as being one of the happiest. I did not find Dr. Gloyd the lover I expected. He was kind but seemed to want to be away from me; used to sit and read, when I was so hungry for his caresses and love. I have heard that this is the experience of many other young married women. They are so disappointed that their husbands change so after marriage. With my observation and experience I believe that men have it in their power to keep the love of ninety-nine women out of a hundred. Why do women lose love for their husbands? I find it is mostly due to indifference on the part of the husband. I often hear the experience of those poor abandoned sisters. I ask, Why are you in this house of sin and death? When I can get their confidence, many of them say: "I married a man; he drank, and went with other women. I got discouraged or spiteful, and went to the bad also." I find that drink causes so much enmity between the sexes. Drinking men neglect their wives. Their wives become jealous. Men often go with abandoned women under the influence of that drink that animates the animal passions and asks not for the association of love, but the gratification of lust. Men do not go to the houses of ill-fame to meet women they love but oftener those they almost hate. The drink habit destroys in men the appreciation of a home life, and when a woman leaves all others for one man, she does, and should, expect his companionship, and is not satisfied without it. Libertines, taking advantage of this, select women whose husbands are neglectful, and he wins victims by his attentions, and poor woman, as at the first, is beguiled. Marriage, while it is the blissful consummation of pure love, is the most serious of all relations, and girls and boys should early be instructed about the secrets of their own natures, the object of marriage, and the serious results of any marriage where true love is not the object. I confess myself that I was not fit to marry with the ignorance of its holy purpose. Sunday school teachers, mothers, fathers, and ministers, look into God's word and see the results of sin. God has written of this so as to force you to educate your children. Talk freely. Truth will purify everything it comes in contact with. Ignorance is not innocence, but is the promoter of crime: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."

About five days after we were married, Dr. Gloyd came in, threw himself on the bed and fell asleep. I was in the next room and saw his mother bow down over his face. She did not know I saw her. When she left, I did the same thing, and the fumes of liquor came in my face. I was terror stricken, and from that time on, I knew why he was so changed. Not one happy moment did I see; I cried most all the time. My husband seemed to understand that I knew his condition. Twice, with tears in his eyes, he remarked: "Oh! Pet, I would give my right arm to make you happy." He would be out until late every night. I never closed my eyes. His sign in front of the door on the street would creak in the wind, and I would sit by the window waiting to hear his footsteps. I never saw him stagger. He would lock himself up in the "Masonic Lodge" and allow no one to see him. People would call for him in case of sickness, but he could not be found.

My anguish was unspeakable, I was comparatively a child. I wanted some one to help me. He was a mason. I talked to a Mr. Hulitt, a brother mason, I begged of him to help me save my precious husband. I talked to a dear friend, Mrs. Clara Mize, a Christian, hoping to get some help in that direction, but all they could say, was. "Oh, what a pity, to see a man like Dr. Gloyd throw himself away!" The world was all at once changed to me, it was like a place of torture. I thought certainly, there must be a way to prevent this suicide and murder. I now know, that the impulse was born in me then to combat to the death this inhumanity to man.

I believe the masons were a great curse to Dr. Gloyd. These men would drink with him. There is no society or business that separates man and wife, or calls men from their homes at night, that produces any good results. I believe that secret societies are unscriptural, and that the Masonic Lodge has been the ruin of many a home and character.

I was so ignorant I did not know that I owed a duty to myself to avoid gloomy thoughts; did not know that a mother could entail a curse on her offspring before it was born. Oh, the curse that comes through heredity, and this liquor evil, a disease that entails more depravity on children unborn, than all else, unless it be tobacco. There is an object lesson taught in the Bible. The mother of Samson was told by an angel to "drink neither wine nor strong drink" before her child was born, and not to allow him to do so after he was born. God shows by this, that these things are injurious. Mothers often make drunkards of their own children, before they are born. My parents heard that Dr. Gloyd was drinking. My father came down to visit us, and I went home with him. My mother told me I must never go back to my husband again. I knew the time was near at hand, when I would be helpless, with a drunken husband, and no means of support. What could I do? I kept writing to "Charlie," as I called him. He came to see me once; my mother treated him as a stranger. He expressed much anxiety about my confinement in September; got a party to agree to come for him at the time; but my mother would not allow it. In six weeks after my little girl was born, my mother sent my brother with me to Holden to get my trunk and other things to bring them home. Her words to me were: "If you stay in Holden, never return home again." My husband begged me to stay with him; he said: "Pet, if you leave me, I will be a dead man in six months." I wanted to stay with him, but dared not disobey my mother and be thrown out of shelter, for I saw I could not depend on my husband. I did not know then that drinking men were drugged men, diseased men. His mother told me that when he was growing up to manhood, his father, Harry Gloyd, was Justice of the Peace in Newport, Ohio, twelve years, and that Charlie was so disgusted with the drink cases, that he would go in a room and lock himself in, to get out of their hearing; that he never touched a drop until he went in the army, the 118th regiment, Thomas L. Young being the Colonel. Dr. Gloyd was a captain. In the society of these officers he, for the first time, began to drink intoxicants. He was fighting to free others from slavery, and he became a worse slave than those he fought to free. In a little less than six months from the day my child was born, I got a telegram telling of his death. His father died a few months before he did, and mother Gloyd was left entirely alone.

Mother Gloyd was a true type of a New England housewife, and I had always lived in the south. I could not say at this time that I loved her, although I respected her very highly. But I wanted to be with the mother of the man I loved more than my own life; I wanted to supply his place if possible. My father gave me several lots; by selling one of these and Dr. Gloyd's library and instruments, I built a house of three rooms on one of the lots and rented the house we lived in, which brought us in a little income, but not sufficient to support us. I wanted to prepare myself to teach, and I attended the Normal Institute of Warrensburg. I was not able to pay my board and Mr. Archie Gilkerson and wife charged me nothing and were as kind to me as parents. God bless them! I got a certificate and was given the primary room in the Public School at Holden. Mother Gloyd kept house and took care of Charlien, my little girl, and I made the living. This continued for four years. I lost my position as teacher in that school this way: A Dr. Moore was a member of the board, he criticised me for the way I had the little ones read; for instance, in the sentence, "I saw a man," I had them use the short a instead of the long a, and so with the article a; having them read it as we would speak it naturally. He made this serious objection, and I lost my place and Dr. Moore's niece got my room as teacher. This was a severe blow to me, for I could not leave mother Gloyd and Charlien to teach in another place, and I knew of no other way of making a living except by teaching. I resolved then to get married. I made it a subject of prayer and went to the Lord explaining things about this way. I said: "My Lord, you see the situation I cannot take care of mother and Charlien. I want you to help me. If it be best for me to marry, I will do so. I have no one picked out, but I want you to select the one that you think best. I want to give you my life, and I want by marrying to glorify and serve you, as well as to take care of mother and Charlien and be a good wife." I have always been a literalist. I find out that it is the only way to interpret the Bible. When God says: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him he shall bring it to pass," I believe that to be the way to act. My faith does not at all times grasp this or other promises, but there are times when I can appropriate them and make them mine; there are times when I can pray with faith, believing that I have the things I pray for, other times it is not so.

In about ten days from that time I made this a subject of prayer, I was walking down the street in Holden and passed a place where Mr. Nation was standing, who had come up from Warrensburg, where he was then editing the "Warrensburg Journal". He was standing in the door with his back to me, but turned and spoke. There was a peculiar thrill which passed through my heart which made me start. The next day I got a letter from him, asking me to correspond with him. I was not surprised; had been expecting something like it. I knew that this was in answer to my prayer, and David Nation was to be the husband God selected for me. He was nineteen years older than I, was very good looking, and was a well-informed, successful lawyer, also a Christian minister. My friends in Holden opposed this because of the difference in our ages and of his large family. I gave him the loving confidence of a true wife and he was often very kind to me. We were married within six weeks from the time I got the letter from him. Mother Gloyd went to live with us and continued to do so for fifteen years, until she died. My married life with Mr. Nation was not a happy one. I found out that he deceived me in so many things. I can remember the first time I found this out. I felt like something was broken that could never be mended. What a shattered thing is betrayed confidence! Oh, husband, and wives, do not lie to each other, even though you should do a vile act; confess to the truth of the matter! There will be some trouble over it, but you can never lose your love for a truthful person. I hated lying because I loved the truth. I hated dishonesty because I loved honesty. I loved, therefore I hated. I love mankind therefore I hated the enemies of mankind. I loved God and therefore hated the devil. Truth is the pearl of great price. Whoso getteth it has all earth and heaven.

I shall not in this book give to the public the details of my life as a wife of David Nation any more than possible. He and I agreed in but few things, and still we did not have the outbreaks many husbands and wives have. The most serious trouble that ever rose between us was in regard to Christianity. My whole Christian life was an offense unto him, and I found out if I yielded to his ideas and views that I would be false to every true motive. He saw that I resented this influence and it caused him to be suspicious and jealous. I think my combative nature was largely developed by living with him, for I had to fight for everything that I kept. About two years after we were married, we exchanged our mutual properties for seventeen hundred acres of land on the San Bernard River in Texas, part of which was a cotton plantation. We knew nothing of the cultivation of cotton or of plantation life. We took a car load of good furniture with us and some fine stock, hogs and cattle. In packing up to go to Texas there was a widow who assisted me. In paying her for her services, I gave her some worthless things, because I was so avaricious. I would not pay her money, but gave her the things I did not want to carry with me. I remember I left about eight bushels of potatoes in the cellar for her and the night we left they froze. I felt very much condemned the way I treated this poor woman.

We were as helpless on the plantation as little children. The cultivation of cotton was very different from anything we had been used to. A bad neighbor threw all of our plows in the Bernard River and everything seemed to go wrong. We had eight horses die in the pasture the spring after we moved there. Soon the money we took with us was gone and Mr. Nation got discouraged. He went to Brazoria, the county seat, and stayed six weeks during court, for the purpose of entering the practice of law again.

The cotton had been planted before he left. A neighbor named Martin Hanks came over and told me not to allow the cotton to go to waste, said he would lend me his plows, and advised me to get a colored man named Edmond, who was his master's overseer in slave time, to manage this crop for me. I hired five other negroes, paying them with things I had in the house, for I had not a cent of money. The result was a fine crop of cotton. Mr. Nation's daughter Lola, was then eleven years old, and Charlien was three years younger. We lived six miles from a school, and just at a time when the girls needed school most. I began to see what a disastrous move we had made. I became very dispondant and sick at heart. I was young and did not know then how to contend with disappointments on every hand. At one time I was quite sick with chills and fever. I had nothing in the house but meal, some fat bacon and sweet potatoes. There was a poor old man that we took in for charity who was with us, named Mr. Holt. I called him to my bedside and asked him to go to the patch and dig a bushel of sweet potatoes and take them to town and exchange them for a little tea, sugar, lemons and bread. He failed in this and was returning when, he met a dear, sweet woman, Mrs. Underwood, that I called my "Texas Mother." She called to Mr. Holt, and asked him how I was. He told her I was sick and out of anything to eat. She took the potatoes and sent the articles I wanted. I believe I should have died had he returned without them, for I was almost famished for food and sick besides.

I was in Columbia one day and stopped at the Old Columbia Hotel, owned by the Messrs. Park, two bachelors. Mrs. Ballenger a widow was renting it from Messrs. Park. I said to them: "If you ever need a tenant, send for me." In a few months Mrs. Ballenger's daughter died and she left. Mr. Park sent for me to come. We had a car load of good plain furniture and bedding, some handsome tableware, but no money to buy provisions.

Dear old mother Gloyd was a great help to me. She had once kept hotel herself. I did not ask credit, and this is how I got the money to begin keeping hotel: There was an Irish ditcher named Dunn whose wife did my work. She was a good cook. I borrowed of Mr. Dunn three dollars and fifty cents, and with this money began the hotel business. The house was a rattle trap, plastering off, and a regular bed-bug nest. I fumigated, pasted the walls over with cloth and newspapers, where the plastering was off, and made curtains out of old sheets. My purchases were about like this for the first day: Fifty cents worth of meat, coffee ten cents, rice ten cents and sugar twenty-five cents, potatoes five, etc. The transients at one meal would give me something to spend for the next. I assisted about the cooking and helped in the dining-room. Mother Gloyd and Lola attended to the chamber work, and little Charlien was the one who did the buying for the house. I would often wash out my tablecloths at night myself and iron them in the morning before breakfast. I would take boarders' washing, hire a woman to wash, then do the ironing myself. Columbia was a small village of not more than five hundred people. It was the terminal of a railroad called the Columbia Tap. Mr. Painter, the conductor, began boarding with us right off and in three or four days he brought a family there to board by the name of Oastram, father, mother and two boys, having come south to buy a plantation. Mrs. Oastrom handed me a ten dollar bill. I called Lola and Charlien upstairs and showed them the ten dollar bill. We were overjoyed; we danced, laughed, and cried. Charlien said: "Now we can buy a whole ham." For several months my little children and I ate nothing but broken food. I can never put on paper the struggles of this life. I would not know one day how we would get along the next.

The bitterest sorrows of my life have come from not having the love of a husband. I must here say that I have had, at times, in the society of those I love, a foretaste of what this could be. For years I never saw a loving husband that I did not envy the wife; it was a cry of my heart for love. I used to ask God why He denied me this. I can see now why it was. I know it was God's will for me to marry Mr. Nation. Had I married a man I could have loved, God could never have used me. Phrenologists who have examined my head have said: "How can you, who are such a lover of home be without one?" The very thing that I was denied caused me to have a desire to secure it to others. Payne who wrote "Home Sweet Home" never had one. There is in my life a cause of sadness and bitter sorrow that God only knows. I shall not write it here. Oh! how the heart will break almost for a loving word! I believe the great want of the world is love. Jesus came to bring love to earth.

During these severe afflictions I began to see how little there was in life. I wondered at the gaiety of people. Seemed like a pall hung over the earth. I would wonder that the birds sung, or the sun would shine. I might say that for years this was my experience. I would go to God but got very little relief; yet I never gave up. It was all the hope I could see for me. About this time my little Charlien, who had been such a help to me, began to go into a decline, until she was taken down with typhoid fever. Her case was violent and she was delirious from the first. This my only child was peculiar. She was the result of a drunken father and a distracted mother. The curse of heredity is one of the most heart-breaking results of the saloon. Poor little children are brought into the world, cursed by disposition and disease, entailed on them. How can mothers be true to their offspring with a constant dread of the nameless horrors wives are exposed to by being drunkards' wives. Men will not raise domestic animals under conditions where the mothers may bring forth weak or deformed offspring. My precious child seemed to have taken a perfect dislike to Christianity. This was a great grief to me, and I used to pray to God to save her soul at any cost; I often prayed for bodily affliction on her, if that was what would make her love and serve God. Anything for her eternal salvation.

Her right cheek was very much swollen, and on examination we found there was an eating sore inside her cheek. This kept up in spite of all remedies, and at last the whole of her right cheek fell out, leaving the teeth bare. My friends and boarders were very angry at the physician, saying she was salivated. From the first something told me this is an answer to your prayer. At this time, when her life was despaired of, I had an intense longing to save my child, who was so dear to me. I said: "Oh, God, let me keep a piece of my child." A minister said: "Don't pray for the life of your child; she will be so deformed it were better she were dead." I could not feel this way. After being at death's door for nine days, she began to recover. The wound in her face healed up to a hole about the size of a twenty-five cent piece. Her jaws closed and remained so for eight years. The sickness of my daughter and the keeping up of the hotel was such a tax on my mind, that for six months all transactions would recede from my memory. For instance, if anyone told me something, in an hour afterwards, I could not tell whether it had been hours, days or months since it was told me. I never entirely recovered from this, still being forgetful of names, dates and circumstances, unless they are particularly impressed upon my mind. When I could afford it, I took my child, then twelve years old, down to Galveston, put her under the care of Dr. Dowell for the purpose of closing the hole in her cheek. I had to leave the little one down there among strangers, for I could not afford to stay with her. A mother only will know what this means. After four operations the place was closed up in her cheek, still her mouth was closed, her teeth close together. I suffered torture all these years for fear she might strangle to death. I took her to San Antonio, Texas, to Dr. Herff, and he and his two sons removed a section of the jawbone, expecting to make an artificial joint, enabling her to use the other side of her jaw. After all this, the operation was a failure, and her jaws closed up again. We, in the meantime, moved to Richmond from Columbia. We became very successful in the hotel business and I saved money enough to send her to New York City, where her father, Dr. Gloyd, had a cousin, Dr. Messinger, who would see that she had the best relief possible. None of the surgeons there gave her any hope of opening her jaws. She went to Dr. John Wyeth to have him perform the plastic surgery; that is, he cut off a flap from under her chin, turning it over the scar on her cheek.

Although Charlien was not a Christian, she had faith in God. Once she complained of my being too strict with her, but said: "Mamma I owe it to you that I have any faith in God, even if you are severe with me." She always believed that her mother had a God. Finding no physician in New York that could open her jaws, she wrote me this: "No one but God can open my mouth, Mamma; ask him to do it." There was a Catholic woman, Miss Doregan, who boarded with me and had a store around the corner from the hotel, and I could think of no one else who had as much faith as this woman. She said she believed that God would heal my child according to prayer, so I went for seven mornings before breakfast to this saint of God. She taught me many holy truths and she explained the Scriptures to me. I learned from her a prayer that we said in concert, that was written by one of the Old Fathers, and is one of the most complete in devotion I have ever read. I will record it here: "Come Holy Ghost send down those beams, That sweetly flow in silent streams, From thy bright throne above; Oh, Come Father of the poor, Thou bounteous source of all our store; Come fire our hearts with love. Come thou of comforters the best, Come thou the soul's delicious guest, The pilgrim's sweet relief: Thou art our rest in toil and sweat, Refreshment in excessive heat And solace in our grief. Oh! sacred light shoot home the darts, Oh! pierce the center of those hearts Whose faith aspires to thee. Without thy God-head nothing can Have any worth a price in man, Nothing can harmless be." "Lord wash our sinful stains away, Water from heaven our barren clay, Our wounds and bruises heal. To thy sweet yoke our stiff necks bow, Warm with thy fire our hearts of snow, Our wandering feet repair. Oh, grant thy faithful dearest Lord, Whose only hope is thy sure word, The seven gifts of thy spirit. Grant us in life to obey thy grace, Grant us in death to see thy face And endless joys inherit, Through the same Christ our Lord." "Amen."

And now I often use this beautiful and comprehensive petition to my Dear Lord.

Charlien wrote that she had letters of introduction to a physician in Philadelphia, Dr. J. Ewing Mears, but in every letter would say: "Keep on praying." This we did. Oh, the anxiety of my mother heart! My duties as landlady kept me busy all day and part of the night. I often had to do my own cooking.

God was good to me and we were very successful financially, and managed to meet all debts and payments on the property we had purchased.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet