She stood the journey so well, says her physician, that again she said to us just before reaching Washington that she would be glad to remain on the train and continue on to California, emphasizing “That’s what I’d like to do.” The physician further comments: “Her faith in her friend’s loyalty would have been sufficient tonic to make the journey easy and a delight, and I feel sure now that had she taken the journey then, as she expressed the wish, the end of the journey would have found her in an improved condition, with constant-increasing physical strength.”
In the author’s diary for October 20, 1911, is found the following:
At ten A.M. visited Calumet Place. Mrs. John A. Logan and I then went to Glen Echo on the street car. Visited Miss Clara Barton, who was in a chair awaiting our presence. Spent an hour or so with her. She was in good spirits, happy and much improved in health. Mrs. Logan and she talked over personal matters. She received me most cordially, and said she was most happy to see me; also said she would like to go to California with me. Mrs. Logan, Dr. Hubbell, Stephen E. Barton and I had a talk in the room downstairs on matters of personal interest to Miss Barton, formulating a plan for her vindication.
FORECASTING THE BIOGRAPHY
In April, 1912, her physician, Dr. Julian B. Hubbell, wrote from Glen Echo that a few hours before her passing Clara Barton expressed the wish that, if not exclusively so, in any event the author must be associated with her biographer. The protection of her “good name” by her biographer was more to her than a recital of her deeds of valor. She had in mind in selecting her biographer not what fame thereby might come to him, not kinship nor the family name, not what profit there might be in her biography. She had in mind her own “good name,” and the cause such “good name” represents. These were to her vital; these to her were dearer than life itself. Respect for the wish of the dying, and the dead, is regarded sacred; such wish has been regarded sacred, and binding, throughout the centuries, alike by Christian and Pagan. To do violence to the sentiment and well known wish of Clara Barton, on the part of the author, similarly would do violence to the sentiment of the country which would protect her “good name,” a name historic and beloved by the people—violence to the sentiment pervading all humanity.
As the financial executor had possession of, and control of, the historic data prerequisite, for all practical purposes he could name the biographer of the nation’s heroine;—could dictate what data and sentiment must be, and must not be, included in the biography of his Aunt. As soon after her passing as it could be written and reach California there came from her nephew, Mr. Stephen E. Barton, of her nearest of kin and by her made the Executor of her Estate, the following letter:
ONE OF MY AUNT’S LAST REQUESTS
Boston, Mass.,
April 20, 1912.
Col. Charles Sumner Young,