Besides, a misfortune had just fallen upon us. During the night before, our doors had been unlocked, our bureau drawers inspected, and all our money, amounting to fifty-two dollars, carried off. And when Catherine arrived, we were so poor that we had to borrow the bread and milk for our breakfast. Fortunately, the day before, I had refused the payment due me for a large bill of goods, and this came now in a very good time.
I did not feel justified, however, in increasing the family to five after our loss, nor did she claim our assistance, but went again to Pastor S. who had invited her to visit his family. With his assistance, she obtained some private nursing, which maintained her until the congregation had collected money enough to enable her to return to Berlin, which she did on the 2d of December. Having many friends in the best circles of that city, she immediately found a good practice again and she is now, as she says, enjoying life in a civilized manner.
We moved at once from the scene of the robbery and took a part of a house in Monroe Street, for which we paid two hundred dollars a year. Our business continued good, and I had some prospect of getting into practice. But with the spring (1854), the demand for worsted goods ceased, and as my practice brought me work but no money, I was forced to look for something else to do.
By accident, I saw in a store a coiffure made of silk in imitation of hair, which I bought. But I found on examination that I could not manufacture it as it was machine work. I went, therefore, to Mr. G. and proposed to him the establishment of a business in which he should manufacture these coiffures, while I would sell them by wholesale to the merchants with whom I was acquainted.
Mr. G. had completely ruined himself during the winter by neglecting his business and meddling with Tammany Hall politics, which had wasted his money and his time. He had not a single workman in his shop when I called, and he was too much discouraged to think of any new enterprise; but on my telling him that I would be responsible for the first outlay, he engaged hands and in less than a month had forty-eight persons busily employed. In this way, I earned money during the spring and freed myself from the obligations which his kindness in receiving us the spring before had laid upon us.
My chief business now was to sell the goods manufactured by Mr. G. Our worsted business was very small, and the prospect was that it would cease entirely, and also that the coiffure that we made would not long continue in fashion. Some other business, therefore, had to be found, especially as it was impossible for us to lay up money.
Our family now consisted of myself and two sisters, the friend that was staying with us, and a brother, nineteen years of age, who had just joined us during the winter and who, though an engineer and in good business, was, like most young men, thoughtless and more likely to increase than to lighten our burdens. Our friend Mr. C., who had become our constant visitor, planned at this time a journey to Europe, so that our social life seemed also about to come to an end.
On the 13th of May, 1854, as I was riding down to the stores on my usual business, reveries of the past took possession of my mind. Almost a year in America, and not one step advanced towards my purpose in coming hither! It was true that I had a comfortable home, with enough to live on, and had repaid to my sister the money that I had borrowed from her on our arrival; yet what kind of life was it that I was leading, in a business foreign both to my nature and to my inclinations, and without even the prospect of enlarging this? These reflections made me so sad that when I reached the store, the bookkeeper, noticing my dejection, told me by way of cheering me that he had another order for a hundred dollars’ worth of goods, etc., but this did not relieve me.
I entered the omnibus again, speculating constantly on what I should do next. Everywhere, my inquiries about women physicians were received with a pitiful shrug of the shoulders, and I could obtain no information concerning the Philadelphia Female Medical College whose report I had read in Berlin. I had finally consulted the newspapers in spite of all the warnings against so doing, and I was almost at the point of calling upon a Mr. and Mrs. B. who advertised their private lying-in hospital (Mrs. B., after becoming a widow, resumed the name of her first husband and became the originator of the homeopathic medical college for women), when a thought suddenly dawned upon me.
Might not the people in the Home for the Friendless be able to give me advice? I had hardly conceived the idea, when I determined to ride directly up there instead of stopping at the street in which I lived. I thought, besides, that some employment might be found for my sister Anna where she could learn the English language for which she had evinced some talent, although I had decided that I could never become master of it.