I think one of the first things almost that I did after arriving in Chicago was to write the daddy of my sweetheart asking for her hand. I had been a little afraid to do so when at close range, but the farther away I went the bolder I became, for I knew that whatever his answer might be I was certainly out of any personal danger.
The old gentleman's answer was, however, a favorable one, and so after my first season's play in Chicago was over I returned to Philadelphia and there was united to the woman of my choice, and I am frank to confess that I was more nervous when I faced the minister on that occasion that I ever was when, bat in hand, I stood before the swiftest pitcher in the league.
The first little visitor that came to us was a baby girl that we called Grace, who was born October 6, 1877. That seems a long time ago now. The baby Grace has grown to womanhood's estate and is the happy wife of Walter H. Clough, and the proud mother of Anson McNeal Clough, who was born May 7, 1899, and who will be taught to call me "grandpa" as soon as his baby lips can lisp the words.
Adrian Hulbert Anson was our next baby. He was born Sept. 4, 1882, and died four days afterward, that being the first grief that we had known since our marriage. Another daughter, Adele, crept into our hearts and household April 24th, 1884, and is still with us.
Adrian C. Anson Jr. came into the world on September 4th, 1887, and died on the eighteenth day of January following. He lived the longest of all of my boys and his death was the cause of great grief both to his mother and myself.
The storks brought me another daughter, my little Dorothy, on August 13th, 1889, and she, thank God, is still engaged in making sunshine for us all.
John Henry Anson was born on May 3d, 1892, but four days later the angel of Death again stopped at my threshold and when he departed he bore a baby boy in his arms, whither I know not, but to a better world that this I feel certain, and one to which his baby brothers had journeyed before him.
Virginia Jeanette arrived November 22d, 1899, and has already learned to kick at the umpire when her meals are not furnished as promptly as she has reason to think they should be. She is a strong, healthy baby, and bids fair to remain with us for some years to come.
Before returning again to the ball field, on which the greater portion of my life has been spent, I wish to record the fact that all that I have and all that I have earned in the way both of money and reputation in later years I owe not to myself, but to Mrs. Anson. She has been to me a helpmeet in the truest and best sense of the word, rejoicing with me in the days of my success and sympathizing with me in the days of my adversity.
It was owing to her good counsel that I braced up in the days when she was my sweetheart, and it was to please her that I have staid braced up ever since, and am consequently still strong in mind and limb and as healthy a specimen of an athlete as you can find in a year's travel, albeit a little too heavy to run the bases still and play the game of ball that I used to play.