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

56
ANNALS OF OUR' ANCESTORS
When Mrs. Fillmore's son Challen was born she suffered with
what was then called "nursing sore mouth," and they de-
spaired of her recovery. At once on hearing it mother laid
plans to bring her out to our home. She had "Old Rock"
hitched to the little covered wagon, placed a feather bed in
the back of it, and herself drove to Fulton and brought her
friend back with her. Mrs. Fillmore's sister, Mrs. Ford,
brought the baby, and we were much interested in his
coming.
When she had her dear friend with her and dependent
upon her ministry, mother toasted bread with her own perfec-
tion in this particular, soaked it in cream, and fed it to the
beloved invaUd until she was quite recovered and able to re-
turn to her young family and the service she delighted to ren-
der them. All the many "nameless, unremembered acts of
kindness and of love" which these two women and other dear
Christian mothers Hke them rendered would make a beautiful
story. Public charities were not manifold in those days, and
the two belonged to those who thought upon the sinning and
neglected, the unknown and forgotten poor; and I love to see,
though in different ways, these characteristics cropping out
in their descendants. Ida and I have this summer (1912)
been recaUing some of our mother's city mission work, as it
might now be called, but which was then but the reaching out
of a helping hand to a wretched and dying woman in the
slums of Cincinnati.
To return to the days before her marriage, I must tell of our
mother's thrift and industry. She was successful in her
business undertakings, for besides being a beautiful seamstress
she was frugal and a woman of foresight. We know that she
was fond of good clothes, and there is yet in my memory the
record of a wardrobe she earned for herself while putting by
savings as well. I linger over this part, for I love to think
that the dear little woman had some of the prettiness she de-
sired while still in her youth. There were two silk dresses,
one black and one brown, while a third dress-up gown was
from "robe white lawn." It was something like a white embroidered
dress pattern of to-day, only the wide border of