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

320
ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
The years brought more of wealth to our younger brother
than our family had ever before known, many times over. His
business acumen and upright, honest endeavor were richly
rewarded, and he won that for which he strove; when he had
attained success, he had won it not by being a hard master,
neither by selfishness in carrying on his business. The success
of those he employed who honestly served his firm was always
a satisfaction to him. He seemed ever ready to share the
successes of his undertaking. The growth of his business was
steady and arose upon good foundations; he was neither rash,
speculative, nor venturesome. As I am writing these pages
for our own family and not for the great public, I hke to dwell
longest upon that which is our own and does not belong to the
general reader. To Minnesota and nineteen other states he
was the head of a great dispensing firm whose agents traveled
all roads and whose wagons were well-known sights in every
farming community of those states — to us he was some one
more.
I remember the home in Winona which Sister Mary kept
in such beautiful order, looking "well to the ways of her household"
and never eating "the bread of idleness." I think of
what Grace meant to that home of our younger brother, the
life and youth she brought there, and of her careful rearing.
I remember her going to a girls' boarding school in Washington
City, and later of her trip abroad after her graduation with a
party well conducted, and then her return to her parents and
former companions the same daughter and friend.
The years were not to go unclouded; all too soon the
shadows began to fall. It is painful to come to those parts
of our story where the last long shadows begin to appear and
those we have loved and cherished most must go out to return
no more, must fare forth alone on the long journey. The
departure from this life of our sister, Mary Ellen Heberling,
occurred on April 15, 1904. While her health was never the
best, yet her appearance suggested vitality, and I had con-
fidently expected that she would outlive me; I had planned in
my mind to leave it to her to carry out some of my requests.
On a sudden, like a flash from a clear sky, while giving orders