Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

We were obliged to call in the aid of one, Mrs. Flora Cary, afterward Mrs. Barry, a concert singer with a fine contralto voice. She generously gave us her services. My mother’s cousin, John Ward, possessed a well-cultivated tenor voice, and he, too, nobly volunteered. With the help of these and other performers the concert for the benefit of the Cretans at last came off. We cleared four hundred dollars, and a donation from the Misses Hazard, the sisters of Mr. Thomas Hazard, brought our profits up to five hundred.

Cousin John had taken degrees both as a doctor and as a lawyer, yet he practised neither profession. The possession of money was an effective damper on his activities. For many years he was a member of the well-known Mendelssohn Glee Club of New York. Unfortunately, he desired also to be a poet, a career for which nature had not intended him. He had a theory that perseverance was the main requisite. Hence he would read his verses to some unfortunate friend, and if the latter made any criticism which seemed to him just he would call on the friend a second time, and recite a revised version, asking if that were any better!

His friends took refuge in polite lies. “Oh no, John, I have no taste for poetry. I’m no judge of it—it would not be of any use to read that to me!”

Even the most conscientious fell from truth, after a while. When it came to the third degree—listening to the same verses, altered slightly to suit your taste, for the third time you surrendered. You accepted them as faultless—anything, rather than listen to them again.

He printed a volume of poems, which he determined should be letter-perfect. Of course it was not—but the printer profited handsomely by the venture.

A more practical taste was that for genealogy. We owe to his painstaking industry biographies of our common ancestors, Governor Samuel Ward and his son, Lieutenant-Colonel Ward, as well as an account of the Continental Congress before the Declaration of Independence. Thereby hangs a tale. Governor Samuel Ward was not only a member of that Congress, but presided constantly over the body as chairman of the Committee of the Whole, until March 15, 1776, when he was obliged to leave the session, owing to a violent attack of smallpox! He died shortly after, and so did not sign the famous document. His colleague, Stephen Hopkins, did live to sign it, yet it was the “physical disability” of the latter which threw such a burden of work on Governor Ward that he was in an entirely unfit state to cope with the disease!

We have found it a little hard to forgive our distinguished ancestor his imprudence. If he had only been inoculated beforehand all might have been well, but he could not take the time! However, we console ourselves by remembering that he was the only Colonial governor who refused to carry out the odious stamp act!

His son, Lieut-Col. Samuel Ward, did good service in the Revolution. Cousin John regarded these and other ancestors with a reverence that amounted almost to awe. He would let you take a peep at Governor Ward’s Congressional Journal, but you were not permitted to touch it. Yet he made no provision for the care of these beloved papers after his death. They were inherited by a relative who, possessing no taste for genealogical research, has locked them up in a safe-deposit box.

I have sometimes thought there should be one genealogist—and only one—in each generation. Yet, when I remember the lives of some of those I have known, it seems a little hard to condemn even one person every thirty years to this gentle fate. For it is not to be denied that genealogists are often ineffective, though excellent, persons. It has been already said of Cousin John that he went to the Civil War. So he did his “bit” for his country.

During the seven months while the family were in Europe sister Maud remained under my charge. With the help of Miss Mary Paddock, we kept house in the “Doctor’s” part of the Institution, visiting various relatives later on. That Miss Paddock should thus come to help us out was quite in the usual order of things. We were all fond of her and accepted her aid as a matter of course. As the young Howes grew older, we saw and appreciated the sterling worth and rare unselfishness of her character.