Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

WHAT THE YEARS HAVE BROUGHT 315
later it was remarked of Iiitntliat he had the greatest enthusiasm
for the study of geography, and plead for more rational
methods of teaching this "humanizing branch."
As the years brought Httlc children to his home, our
brother's cup of joy filled. The eldest, Rosamond Leslie,
was to become her father's right hand. When Brother
William gave up the profession of teaching in 1888 he entered
the abstract of title business. This was to be his work for
the rest of his active life. Rose began with him, and carried
on the business for almost fourteen years after she was left
without her loving father. Her loyalty to him stood any
test; she was dependable then as she is now. She remained
single until after Brother William's death and then, in the
spring of 1901, she was married to Joseph Eraser.
The second child was Helen May, our "little Nell," whose
starry mind went out in youth, to shine here only in the life
of her son, William Watkins Truesdell. What a sad summer
was that of 1894 in our brother's family! Agnes' little son,
her first-born, died July nth of diphtheria, and three days
later Helen, after but a week's illness, was gone beyond recall.
It seemed all too sad that her bright intelligence, her lovable
and winsome manners, her fair face, were never to be a part
of our brother's home circle more. Her husband, John M.
Truesdell, had passed away two years before, on March 17,
1892. He was a scholarly man and a true mate for Nell; and
he was not thirty-five when the call came, and this dear niece
was a widow. Theirs was the first marriage of that generation
in our family. Their wedding occurred on the last day of the
year 1885. The little bride was a sweet picture that day,
with her heavy fair hair and well-formed features, the light
of intelligence illuminating her young face — ah, little Nell is
yet sadly missed out of this world!
Though so short that she could stand beneath her husband's
extended arm, she had yet a womanly dignity and
carriage that made her seem not diminutive when standing
by herself. I am sure that as she stood before some social or
literary club it was not of her physical stature that her audience
thought, but of the height of her grasp of things intellectual.