If anybody in the day of his power was surprised at the extreme and enthusiastic devotion he paid his mother, it was from a lack of knowledge of how he loved her. The sons of widows are, as a rule, far more appreciative of their mothers than are other boys. It needs not a very extended outlook of history to be able to recall numerous instances of this truth, and among the Presidents themselves are several notable examples of the influence of widowed mothers over ambitious sons. And it is well to observe that great men who have owed their training directly to their mothers have never failed to be the strictest observers of the fifth commandment. It is not possible in the limits of this sketch to trace all the struggles of the youth to get an education. His history is one that should be studied by the young of both sexes in this country. The life-work of Mother Garfield is written in the worthy lives of all her children, and imperishably in the fame of her “baby” boy, the twentieth President of the United States.
Mr. and Mrs. Garfield resided in Hiram until 1860, when he was elected to the State Senate, and went to Columbus. He had previous to this time made up his mind that he would become a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar. His intention was to settle in Cleveland and practise his profession, and he doubtless would have done so but for the breaking out of the war. In 1861 he left the Senate to become Colonel of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment. At an earlier period of his life, and while a teacher, he had become a preacher of the Church of the Disciples—a sect known as the Campbellites. His ministerial work was, however, incidental, and not at any time a regular pursuit, though his friends desired him to adopt it as such.
Mr. Garfield went to the war a poor man, not even owning a home, and it was with money saved while in the service that his wife bought a house and lot at Hiram, for which $800 was paid. His wife and children lived in that modest little cottage, which he greatly improved, and owned no other house until, in 1870, after several years of Congressional life, he built himself a dwelling in Washington. When he went to the Senate his salary of $5,000 a year was the largest amount of money he had ever earned, and with a feeling of lessened pecuniary cares was entertained the desire of owning a farm in Ohio, where his fast-growing boys could spend their vacations, and where he could give his wife and himself the rest they required after the busy winters in Washington. Lawnfield, a place now historic, was purchased, and Mrs. Garfield designed the house, which was erected in 1880, and into which the family moved that summer.
The long years of the war were spent by Mrs. Garfield at her home in Hiram. Her parents were living not far away, and the absence of the husband and father was as far as possible atoned for by the presence of relatives and the companionship of Mother Garfield, whose home was with her son from the time he had one to offer her. The months dragged slowly by, until after the battle of Corinth, when Mrs. Garfield was gladdened by the return of her husband, now Brigadier-General, who remained at home for six months suffering from fever and ague, contracted on the tow-path when a boy, and from the effects of which he was never able to completely rid himself.
On his return to the front he joined General Rosecrans as Chief of Staff, and at the battle of Chickamauga he won his Major-General’s stars.
It was during this absence that he lost his infant daughter, and when the news reached him he hastened home to attend the funeral. His dead child was photographed in his arms, and this picture is among the treasures cherished of him now. He was greatly attached to his children, and in speaking of his lost one and the circumstance mentioned, he said to his friend, President Hinsdale: “As I sat with that dead child in my arms my eyes rested upon my bright blue uniform, so recently bestowed upon me, and I thought: ‘How small are all the honors of this life—how insignificant are all its struggles and triumphs!’ I am grieved and broken in spirit at the great loss which has been inflicted upon me, but I can endure almost anything so long as this brave little woman is left me.”
While at the front the people of his district elected him to Congress; and, in 1863, his career in Washington began, and for eight terms he was re-elected. Afterward he was chosen to succeed Mr. Wade in the Senate. The first years General Garfield lived in Washington, whether in boarding-houses or in rented dwellings, his wife and himself were people of no great prominence socially, because they were poor; both were busy and their children absorbed their evenings. Their circle of friends was a charming one, however, because their quiet tastes and studious habits made them attractive to really accomplished people.
When Mrs. Garfield moved into her own house she was as happy as a woman could be, and her husband was not less pleased that he could at last shelter his children under his own roof and at his own fireside. Doubtless, this time spent in their modest home was as free from care as any they ever knew. But wherever they were they were happy together. The mother had her heart’s desire in giving her children the careful home training she could not have bestowed without such a home as she possessed. Her house was a real home because her husband was one with her in all things, and his life and hers were not separated in pleasure or in duty. She was as fond of books as he, and he was always her teacher. It was beyond doubt due to his influence over her life in its formative period that she became a teacher. Her appreciation of his ability and their kindred tastes made them comrades in study and in work. They were united in more than in their domestic relations, and grew nearer together as the years passed.
It is rarely that two people marry, who have known each other so long and so well as did this couple, and it is one of the causes of congratulation that their example has been so prominently set before the world. Men and women of the nobler sort, who appreciate the need there is in public life of notable examples of happy marriages will never regret that the opportunity was given this man and woman to discover their home-life to the people of this country, however much they may deplore the terrible calamity that was the means of unveiling the sacred side of their lives to the world. The comfort it is to the American people—in view of the world-wide publicity given the slightest circumstance connected with their career—that these two people were so admirable in their personal characters and in their home-life, has not been fully realized generally; but it is undeniably true that it was the one sweet strain that sang itself into the wounded hearts of a nation in their time of grief and pain.
Ten years before Mrs. Garfield went into the White House, and during one summer when the family were in Ohio, she was compelled to do much of her own work. In the temporary absence of her husband from home, she wrote him a letter, which, intended for no other eye than his, fell into the hands of President Hinsdale, who made an extract from it for the use of his pupils, as showing the character of the President’s wife and her views upon the subject of woman’s work. It is appropriate here, and is as follows: