CHAPTER XVI
During vacation months, Marie teaches German—Becomes working guest in family of Rev. A. D. Mayo—Meets many noted men and women—Her mother dies on the voyage to New York and is buried at sea—Marie returns to New York, visits Dr. Blackwell, and finds the Infirmary is still closed—She goes to Boston to visit Dr. Hunt—Meets the Grimké sisters—Learns of the New England Female Medical College—Meets William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, and other noted people—Returns to Cleveland and becomes the guest of Mrs. C. Vaughan for her closing term at college—Meets Lyceum speakers, professors, political and social leaders, and literary men and women from various parts of the country. (Twenty-six years of age: 1855.)
Within a few days, there were found some pupils to whom I might teach German. There also came a proposition from Mrs. Mayo who was expecting her first baby within a very short time. The proposition was that I should become a general member of the family, attending to her needs as well as aiding in the housekeeping, etc., till the arrival of her mother later in the spring.
In April, I removed my possessions into that hospitable house which offered its little to me who had less. Both Mr. and Mrs. Mayo were really nervous invalids, and the troubles and trials of their position as anti-slavery advocates and religious reformers bore heavily upon them and kept their purse lean. However, I had no personal needs further than my board, as my clothing was still good in spite of my two years in America.
I found many dear and valued friends during my residence in Cleveland, but none to whom I am bound in lasting gratitude as to Mr. Mayo, who offered me his assistance when he learned that I was in need, my extra expenses having swallowed up the little money that I had brought with me, so that I had not even enough to return to my sisters in New York. As the minister of a small congregation advocating Liberal ideas, he had a hard position in Cleveland, both socially and pecuniarily, yet he offered to share his little with me. I was forced to accept it, and I am now, and have always been, glad that I did so.
No one that has not had the experience can appreciate the happiness that comes with the feeling that a rich man has not cast a fragment of his superfluity towards you (and here let me remark that it is next to impossible to find wealth and generosity go together in friendship), but that the help comes from one who must work for it as well as the recipient. It proves the existence of the mutual appreciation that is known by the name of “friendship.” The apple given by a friend is worth ten times more than a whole orchard bestowed in such a way as to make you feel that the gift is but the superfluity of the donor.
Now I was in my element: superintending a very inferior servant girl; providing wholesome simple meals for the invalids; going three mornings a week to an apothecary shop where a friendly man permitted me to assist him in his work, thus acquiring a knowledge of drugs and their preparation; going two mornings a week to my preceptor’s office to recite in the usual manner; giving German lessons two afternoons a week; spending one evening a week at meetings in houses of different parishioners for discussions on theological subjects, especially Unitarian and Universalist themes; assisting Mr. Mayo on Sundays at the Sunday school, especially in organizing the same and in substituting for absent teachers; and, after the arrival of the baby girl, taking exclusive charge of the delicate little being, trying to bring it up by hand.
During this summer, I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. Leander Lippincott (Grace Greenwood, a sister of Mrs. Mayo). And later I met a great many renowned ministers and lecturers from the East who either called when passing through Cleveland or exchanged pulpits with Mr. Mayo, being our guests in either case. All these gentlemen were highly interesting, especially when talking on politics, the Free Soil movement and anti-slavery. My knowledge of American civilization was in this way greatly increased and my powers of observation and meditation received full satisfaction.
This quiet yet useful existence was broken by a letter from my father, bringing the news of his having sent my mother and the youngest two sisters to New York for a visit to us, with the intention of following them himself as soon as he could obtain a year’s furlough with full salary. All this was meant to see for himself whether I could not be brought back to my senses and persuaded to return to the proper sphere of woman.
Perhaps it may be of interest here to state that my only brother had arrived in New York just before I left for Cleveland and had found a good position as mechanical engineer. And a half-brother of my mother, whom my father had adopted, had arrived after my departure. My father wanted to rescue these two from the fate of being soldiers in Germany, so he expatriated them, sending them to America. But in their new country, the former became a captain in the militia, while later, during the war of the rebellion, the latter became a captain in the regular United States Army.
Shall I attempt to describe the feeling that overpowered me on the receipt of these tidings? If I did, you never could feel it with me, for I could not picture in words the joy I felt at the prospect of beholding again the mother whom I loved beyond all expression, and who was my friend besides; for we really never thought of each other in our relation of mother and child, but as two who were bound together as friends in thought and in feeling.
No, I cannot give you a description of this, especially as it was mingled with the fear that I might not have the means to go to greet her in New York before another ten months were over. Day and night, night and day, she was in my mind; and from the time that I had a right to expect her arrival, I counted the hours from morning until noon, and from noon until night, when the telegraph office would be closed.
At length, on the eighteenth of September, the despatch came—not to me but to my friend Mr. Mayo—bearing the words,
Tell Marie that she must calmly and quietly receive the news that our good mother sleeps at the bottom of the ocean, which serves as her monument and her grave.
This is the most trying passage that I have to write in this sketch of my life, and you must not think me weak that tears blot the words as I write. My mother fell a victim to seasickness which brought on a violent hemorrhage that exhausted the sources of life. She died three weeks before the vessel reached the port, and my two sisters (the one seventeen, and the other nine years of age) chose rather to have her lowered on the Banks of Newfoundland than bring to us a corpse instead of the living. They were right, and the great ocean seems to me her fitting monument.
This news almost paralyzed me. It was impossible for me to remain in Cleveland, I longed so to be with my sisters in New York. Availing myself of the cheapness of an excursion to the eastern cities, I hastened to them, they being nicely established all in one house headed by my brother-in-law, Mr. A. C. ——.
After the first shock of our mother’s loss had passed, I called upon my friend, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who, though well established in her newly acquired house, in East Fifteenth Street, could not speak very encouragingly as to practice. For entirely social reasons, people were afraid to employ a woman physician openly, although desirous and ready to consult her privately. Yet even this unsatisfactory practice had prevented her from continuing the little dispensary regularly and it was still closed.
But, during my absence, she had been trying to interest some wealthy friends in the collection of money to enable us after my return in the spring to commence again upon a little larger scale. To effect this, she proposed to hold a Fair during the winter after my return, and we concluded that the first meeting for this purpose should be held during my visit in New York. She succeeded in calling together a few friends at her house, who determined to form a nucleus for a Fair Association for the purpose of raising money for the New York Infirmary.
Dr. Blackwell’s experience was so contradictory to Dr. Harriot K. Hunt’s statements of the Boston public (in which city a regularly graduated medical woman from Cleveland, Dr. Nancy E. Clark, had also settled) that I decided to avail myself of the fact that my excursion ticket included Boston and to accept Dr. Hunt’s invitation for a visit of a few days in order to learn more of the opportunities of that city.
Arriving early one morning, I was conducted through winding streets from Exeter Place to Green Street to Dr. Hunt’s house, where I stayed, and where Mrs. Theodore Weld and Miss Sarah Grimké were engaged in editing Dr. Hunt’s autobiography, Glances and Glimpses, then in the press.
I was shown into a room in the third story, and as I was descending the stairway soon afterward, my foot caught in the carpet in such a way that I fell head foremost down the stairs, striking against the door at the foot of the flight. The noise caused by this fall brought the inmates of the room to the door where I lay unconscious. My period of unconsciousness was short, and on opening my eyes I saw a queerly shaped scarlet leg on each side of my head, and above these a short drapery of the same bright color but with large flowers printed upon it, while from a beautiful, gentle and kind face encircled by soft white curls, came the words, “Are you hurt, my dear?” It was Mrs. Angelina Weld, in a bloomer dress of calico, and beside her was Miss Sarah Grimké, in a Quakerlike costume, trying to disentangle me from the position which I had assumed.
The picture made by the ladies was so amusing that a burst of mirthful laughter brought me at once to my senses and to my feet, to the delight of these two charming ladies who became from that moment dear and intimate friends of mine.
Dr. Hunt introduced me to many fine people who consulted her professionally, and also to Dr. Nancy Clark, then established as a physician in Boston. I observed that prejudice against women physicians was by no means as strong as in New York or Cleveland.
A school established in 1850, for the education and training of “midwives,” had been supported by Boston’s liberal-minded men and women. Some of the graduates of this school practiced very successfully as midwives. This school developed later into a medical school for women (New England Female Medical College), and was now giving legal diplomas of “Doctor of Medicine.” The medical school was a small but very respectably lodged concern, with correct and kind men for teachers, and with substantial prospects for getting a larger building and greater advantages for study within a year or two.
However, the greatest event of my three days’ sojourn in Boston was my introduction (through Mr. Mayo) to Mr. Theodore Parker, on Sunday evening, I having attended the morning’s service in Music Hall. Through Mr. Parker, I met Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and Mr. Wendell Phillips, as well as a number of other prominent men and women. These three men who were pictured so often in Cleveland as three ferocious lions, I found gentle in manners, humanitarian in thought and word and earnest in purpose, possessors of great souls, feeling hearts and sincere patriotism. I was cordially welcomed by them and kept up this relation until the close of their lives, holding even a very honoring relation as professional adviser in their families.
It was a genial circle of friends, at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who in their easy, informal manner of enjoying each other, impressed me as so utterly different from what I had heard of them, they having been represented by word of mouth as well as in print as the most dangerous and violent revolutionists.
I remember the delicate and graceful figure of Miss Matilda Goddard, the cordial Miss Hannah Stevens, Dr. William F. Channing and Mr. W. L. Garrison, as the center of groups in the spacious parlors, when the talk was of religious and anti-slavery themes, with a frequent easy and cordial laugh at the expense of nobody.
Before returning to Cleveland, I received letters from Mrs. C. Vaughan, a member of Mr. Mayo’s congregation, who was shocked to learn of our great bereavement in the death of our mother. She offered me a home for the winter, with the kindest assurance that financial help might be gained by forming German conversational classes for the evenings.
Thus, on my return, I removed from Mrs. Mayo’s home, where my assistance had become unnecessary, owing to the death of the little baby, to the hospitable mansion occupied by the Vaughan family and the daughter, Mrs. G. Willey, and her husband.
A few words as to the social and educational standing of this family will be pardonable, especially as they were of so rare an occurrence at the time. Southerners by birth, they were yet opposed to slavery, having set their slaves free by bringing them to Cincinnati. Highly cultivated and talented as well as financially well-to-do, they unconcernedly became true reformers in many ways. The daughter, Mrs. Willey, wrote good Free Soil poetry, then needed by that movement; other members of the family developed their special talents as writers or musicians, while Mrs. Vaughan used her advantages for making propaganda by encouraging Lyceum lectures, which system was then in its infancy. And she invited nearly all prominent speakers to stay at her house while in Cleveland.
I thus saw and heard Dr. Harriet Kezia Hunt; Mr. and Mrs. George Hildreth; Mrs. George Bradburn; Grace Greenwood; Rev. Henry Bond; Rev. Mr. Mumford; Rev. Mr. Chapin; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Dr. W. Elder; Bayard Taylor; James Murdock, the actor; Frederick Douglass; Mr. John Giles, of the Lyceum lecture system; Rev. Starr King; prominent professors of the Western Reserve College; and a number of leading literati of those times as well as men distinguished in politics, such as Speaker Colfax, leader of the Free Soil party, and Secretary Salmon Chase, who were holding political meetings. All these acquaintances were of incalculable use to me in this educational period. Although not able to converse with them, I could observe and learn much that was of greatest importance to my future.
Discussions pro and con on all kinds of subjects agitated the people, and more than once did I hear the “Boston Trio”—William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker—denounced as disturbers of Law and Order.
To Mrs. Vaughan’s untiring patience do I owe my acquiring the English language as well as I was then capable of doing. I had to write two essays that winter, one being for an association formed by the medical students, and one being my thesis. After having assisted me in correcting the grammar, Mrs. Vaughan made me read over each one four times, from ten to half-past eleven o’clock, for fifty evenings, until I got a good English pronunciation of which I was very proud.
My German conservatism was not a little startled when I found that here also the so-called Woman’s Rights movement (the political enfranchisement of women) was heartily indorsed. Yet, in all the families whose acquaintance I made from this social center, and who were so different from those in the circles of Mrs. Severance and Mr. Mayo, I soon recognized the same prejudice existing against all women who attempted to step out of the domestic sphere. In spite of their cultivation in literature and music and the fine arts generally, after the completion of school life the women preferred a mere social activity in their own surroundings and a Lady Bountiful attitude among the poor belonging to their respective churches.
I perceived so many contradictions in meeting with these evidently superiorly educated women. For instance, they abhorred the female medical student and would not dare be seen with one of them in the streets, and they considered themselves heroic for including me when inviting any of the Vaughan family to tea or to an evening gathering; yet, in discussing matters of politics, as Free Soilers or sympathizers with anti-slavery, they manifested an independence of speech which showed that they were well acquainted with the subject they discussed. It was so, also, in spiritual and religious matters, in school affairs and in regard to pauperism. The women, young and old, held firmly to their intellectual convictions, and these might be for or against their fathers, brothers or husbands.
It astonished me to see how absolutely quietly and calmly discussions were carried on, without bitterness or excitement, between opponents, and how respectfully men would listen to each other and to the women in particular, even when directly contradicted in their own views of the case.
It was a great educational opportunity for me, broadening my whole nature which had been narrowed by the German school training of being a subject, first to the Government and next to Man.
I was often taken by surprise when, on the brink of forgetting that these manifestations of independence could exist side by side with the most ludicrous prejudice against me and my medical companions, I would be seriously questioned, “Do you want to turn women into men?”
And when appearing in a church or meeting, we always noticed a significant withdrawal of all present so that we medical students could walk or sit conspicuously by ourselves. This isolation which bordered on ostracism when exposed to a limited multitude was very painful to bear, especially as we were young and at the time of life when the amour propre of the individual would seek obscurity rather than notoriety.
Elizabeth Blackwell only wished to open “legally” to women a field of labor which was successfully cultivated by them “illegally,” because we find that women were numerously employed to relieve pain and to combat disease.
They appear, it is true, in the capacity of nurses only, but in this vocation their usefulness increased to such an extent that the name “Doctresses” was given to them, and their advice and help were sought by the educated and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, from far and near.
Legally, their position was not recognized. They maintained it either through their evident integrity of purpose or through shrewdness, making themselves as useful and as honored as the men physicians, who in reality were often superior to them only because the position of the men was made secure by political laws made by the men and for the men.
Thus when, in the later forties, a woman claimed the right of gaining intellectual power, it appeared as if she stepped out of her sphere. And this claim, so simple and natural, was perverted by a hostile spirit into the claim that she wished “to become a man.”
Under the influence of this perverting and contaminating spirit, the sensitive were shocked by her demands; the indolent were vexed; and the wildest apprehensions were excited among both men and women.
I can recall by name even, persons who went to see Miss Blackwell at the college where she studied, really expecting to behold a woman on whom a beard had developed, but who were surprised to find a most womanly woman, delicate in size and figure, timid and reserved in manners, and modest in speech.
Agreeably disappointed in her, proud of her ability, and anxiously wishing her success in all her desires and enterprises, they yet did not dare to invite her to their houses or to request an introduction to her, from fear that they might meet her on the streets and be forced to recognize her in the presence of others.
To associate with or to employ a “doctress” famous merely for common sense, was perfectly respectable and honorable, but to seek the acquaintance of a woman who wished to enter “legally” upon the same work which these doctresses performed was considered of very doubtful respectability.
The consequence was that my three fellow students withdrew entirely into their own abodes and devoted themselves to their professional work. This I could not possibly do. I had to persevere and get acquainted with all phases of American life in order to become what I had always hoped to be, an assistant organizer in the development of the medical education of women.
“The Emancipated Woman!” That was the horror of the day, in social life as well as in the press. And woe to those women who perhaps through lack of physical beauty, or through want of taste in dress, or through a too profound seriousness, did not observe all social graces in detail. They became objects of criticism in private and in public. Exaggerated descriptions and accounts of their every word and act, as well as impertinent and ridiculous delineations, came forth in speech and in print for the amusement of all those who wished to stagnate progress.
Nobody could or would believe that in so few years the admission of the right of women, as “human beings,” to do that for which they felt best fitted would lead to the acceptance of the presence of women in all branches of human activity; and not only this, but that these women would be respected and honored, and appointed to positions of responsibility hitherto filled only by men. And, again, that the number of positions calling for them would be greater than the number of women available, thus proving that there is no danger that all women will desert their natural sphere as wives and mothers.