Our mother had a warm affection for Julia, as indeed for each of the others of whom we write. Julia called our house one of her homes, and, whenever with us, she took a daughter’s share in the love and labor of the household.
A story of my mother’s childhood illustrates the spirit of benevolence by which she influenced Miss La Framboise among others. Her surviving sister, Mrs. Lucretia S. Cooley, writes:—
“When the first missionaries from the vicinity of my early home, Mr. and Mrs. Richards of Plainfield, went to the Sandwich Islands, sister Mary was a little girl. She was deeply impressed by the story of the wants of the children, as portrayed by Mr. Richards, and expressed a strong desire to accompany him. She had just learned to sew quite nicely. Looking up to mother, she said, ‘I could teach the little girls to sew.’ Here was the missionary spirit. Those who go to the Indians, to the islands of the sea, to Africa, must needs be ready to teach all things, doing it as to the Lord.”
When the call to teach among her own people came, Miss La Framboise gladly embraced the opportunity, laboring for them in season and out of season for two short years. Her health failing, she was taken to her old home in Minnesota, where she died, September 20, 1871, but twenty-eight years of age.
Mrs. Holtsclaw, one of her girlhood friends, went to her in that last sickness. She wrote: “I was with her when she died. It was beautiful to see the steady care and gentle devotion of her step-mother, of the rest of the family, and of the neighbors.”
Miss La Framboise was thoroughly educated, thoroughly the lady; always loyal to her people, even when they were most hated and despised; always generous in her deeds and words; always to be depended upon.
Oh, could we but have kept her to work many years for the ennobling and Christianizing of the Dakotas!
Bring lilies of the prairie for this grand-daughter of a chieftain—ay, more, this daughter of the King!
I. R. W.