A woman who had known Mrs. Garfield for a number of years previous to the election of her husband to the Presidency said of her, in reply to a question regarding her fitness for the place she was to fill:

“She will have a most beneficent influence upon society in Washington. She loves truth and despises shams. She is a woman of exceeding good sense, and will perform her entire social duty when called upon.”

“Will she be popular with what is called the fashionable world?”

“Mrs. Garfield is not what would be termed a fashionable woman in Washington, but she will command the respect of all classes. She inclines to retirement, and is very quiet and serious, naturally.”

“A home-body, then!”

“Yes, a home-body; and a lady whose refinement, attainments and fine character the people will like.”

Mrs. Garfield went to the White House under the most advantageous circumstances, but it was the common remark of her friends that she was not likely to make as much of her opportunity, as the First Lady of the Land, socially, as some of her predecessors had. “I hope I shall not disappoint you,” she said to several women who called upon her during the inauguration week. She seemed to feel that more was expected of her than she was likely to perform, and her eyes were full of tears when she made this remark. Had no circumstance occurred to call into prominence the finest characteristics of her nature, she would probably have been slow in producing upon the general public the appreciation she deserved. Her qualities of heart and mind are those that pass for less than their value in what is termed society life. She is not a woman of showy attainments; is not given to the saying of sharp things that sound clever when repeated, but generally hurt those to whom they are addressed. She had no ambition to shine as the leader of Washington society, as the public discovered during the few months of her life in the President’s House. The newspapers overpraised her accomplishments, and this troubled her, as all exaggerations did. She remarked the injustice inaccurate publications did her predecessors, but she could do nothing more than pursue the even tenor of her way, performing what she knew to be her duty. The earlier months of the Administration passed quietly away, the social season being over and her health being poor, and it was remarked that she kept herself secluded from public gaze. By and by her severe illness was announced, and the public sympathized with her husband, who seemed to be borne down by anxiety and dread lest she should be taken from him.

It was evident to those who came in contact with the new Lady of the White House that, though fragile in appearance, she possessed great powers of endurance, and her deliberate and thoughtful utterances gave assurance of a mind and heart that could but prove a blessing to her in her new field of action. The qualities for which she was praised on every side had characterized her through life, but the full opportunity for their display came to her for the first time as the President’s wife. She was found to be undemonstrative and self-contained, and showed by her words and her acts that she valued the place she occupied mainly because it reflected her husband’s greatness and could be made a help to him. Beyond her duties she had no inclinations or aspirations. Her influence had never been exerted selfishly, and she was not likely to change in any respect, because she was greater in herself than she was in the place she had been called to fill for a time. Her husband’s interests were her chief concern, and she lived at his side, aiding and blessing him. She was to him an inspiration—a perpetual joy and solace. He was her rock of strength—her ever-present refuge and rest. He was hers, she was his, and the two were one in their children.

The story of their two lives is well known in this country. Both were born in Ohio; he was the son of a widowed mother, she the daughter of a home full of children. Neither was well-to-do in worldly ways, and he was very poor, and with nothing but a stout heart and a mother’s love to depend upon in the beginning of his career.

When the little girl, Lucretia Rudolph, met James Garfield, her senior by a few years, he was in the same school she attended, Geauga Seminary, and was a strong, healthy boy who was working assiduously to fit himself for college. She was a studious girl who had no very definite plans until she became acquainted with him, and imbibed his taste for books. For several years they were at this school, and then young Garfield entered Hiram College, just completed. In a short time, through the illness and retirement of one of the tutors, he became a teacher, and into his class-room came the reserved young girl, who for two years recited Latin to him. He evidently taught her well, for twenty years later she instructed her boys in Latin, preparatory to their entering college.

Her father, Mr. Zebulon Rudolph, was a farmer living near Garrettsville, and was one of the founders of Hiram College. Her mother was a daughter of Elijah Mason, of Lebanon, Connecticut, and a descendant, on her mother’s side, of General Nathaniel Greene.

Her parents reared their daughter in a practical manner, early imbuing her with ideas of self-restraint and self-government that admirably fitted her for her after career.

After she was graduated from Hiram College she taught school in order to relieve her parents of her support and lift herself above dependence upon them. When Mr. Garfield went to Williams College to continue his education, she went to Cleveland, to teach in one of the public schools. Both studied: she, with a view to self-improvement that she might be a fitting companion for her ambitious lover; he, that he might be prepared for the place among men he aspired to take. They loved each other, and were engaged to be married before their departure from Hiram.

At the end of the year they met at Hiram, and when he had graduated and returned there, she was still teaching. She taught for a year after, though not in Cleveland, and in a letter written by the Hon. A. M. Pratt, of Bayou, Ohio, is given this picture of the two:

“Twenty-three years ago Mrs. Garfield sought and taught scholars in painting and drawing in this then very insignificant village, and not getting very large classes, living meantime in my house, the guest and friend of my then wife. The future President was frequently entertained at my table; he, a young, strong, green, great-hearted, large-headed youth, but two years from college, hopeful, full of life and push; she, graceful, sweet, amiable, retiring, with a disposition as lovely as a star-lit sky—both poor. Their fortune was their youth, health, hearts, intellects, hopes, and, glad am I to say, love.”

The marriage took place at the house of the bride’s parents, November 11, 1858. Mr. Garfield had been made Principal of Hiram College, and considered himself fairly started in life, so that there was no reason for longer deferring the union. He was not rich enough to give his bride a home, and for some years they boarded. Pupils of his during that time knew his wife as a quiet, retiring person, who always welcomed them kindly and showed real interest in their school work and progress. She was an admirable school-teacher’s wife, because of her acquaintance with the work and her appreciation of the responsibility as such. They were a poor couple and lived much within themselves; but they were happily united and congenially employed. She had been taught by her parents—to whom she owes much for such instruction—to be a truth-speaking, right-thinking young woman, and added to this rare training were her excellent school advantages and her practical use of them. She was the outgrowth of this fine family government, and such womanhood as she has developed is a credit to her and an encouragement to other parents.

The husband she selected was eminently fitted by his rearing to appreciate her worth, and it was with genuine satisfaction that their friends saw them unite their two lives.

Of General Garfield’s career much could be written, did the limits of this sketch admit. After his election to the Presidency, considerable was said of his ancestry, but the people of this country cared little for genealogical records in his case. The story of his mother’s struggles to rear her young children, the success achieved in her labors, and her own personal worth, added to what is known of the character of his early lost father, were enough to convince his country people that he came of good stock and had a glorious heritage.

When the father of James Garfield lay dying, he pointed to his children, and said to his wife, “Eliza, I have planted four saplings in these woods; I leave them to your care.” He was buried in a corner of a wheat field on his little farm, and the mother and her boys worked in the fields together. James was her baby. When he was four years old he went to the district school. He was sent thus early that he might learn to read and write before he became old enough to assist on the farm. The three elder children were at work, and when the mother could spare time from her indoor duties she helped them to gather hay, plant corn, and, with her eldest boy’s aid, she cleared new land and fenced it in. Little James learned to spell and read, and imbibed with every passing day the inspiration of purpose and reverence for work that came by-and-by to be second nature to him. His mother early saw that he loved study, and she determined to help him gratify his taste. She could not send him to school in winter, because it was too far for his little feet to plod alone, and she offered to give a corner out of her farm if her neighbors would put up a school-house. It was done, and James became a pupil. He carried home a New Testament at the close of the first term for being the best boy in school.

When he was sixteen he walked sixteen miles to offer his services to a farmer who wanted laborers. He was asked what pay he expected, and replied, “A man’s wages—a dollar a day.” It was refused, and then he volunteered to mow hay by the acre, with the help of a boy older than himself. The offer was accepted, and he earned his dollar before four o’clock in the afternoon.

Who does not know the story of his life? The tow-boy on the Erie Canal; the steersman; the labor-loving and industrious widow’s son whose respect for women all through his life was founded on his respect for his mother. He was not long from home at any time, because she could not bear it, and when he talked about being a sailor she told him of a better life to lead. She was no drudge whose poverty had quelled ambition. She was a true mother, and lived over her life in her children. To her persevering persuasions her boy owed his opportunity for study. Had she possessed riches she could not have done more for him and might have done less. Her youngest born, whom the neighbors, looking at in the cradle, thought would be better off out of the world than in it, followed the way she led, and gave up his desire to work in order to get an education. She was helped in her effort by a spell of sickness he had, and which kept him in the house with her. To that attack of ague, and the opportunity it gave his mother, he largely owed his future career.

If anybody in the day of his power was surprised at the extreme and enthusiastic devotion he paid his mother, it was from a lack of knowledge of how he loved her. The sons of widows are, as a rule, far more appreciative of their mothers than are other boys. It needs not a very extended outlook of history to be able to recall numerous instances of this truth, and among the Presidents themselves are several notable examples of the influence of widowed mothers over ambitious sons. And it is well to observe that great men who have owed their training directly to their mothers have never failed to be the strictest observers of the fifth commandment. It is not possible in the limits of this sketch to trace all the struggles of the youth to get an education. His history is one that should be studied by the young of both sexes in this country. The life-work of Mother Garfield is written in the worthy lives of all her children, and imperishably in the fame of her “baby” boy, the twentieth President of the United States.

Mr. and Mrs. Garfield resided in Hiram until 1860, when he was elected to the State Senate, and went to Columbus. He had previous to this time made up his mind that he would become a lawyer, and was admitted to the bar. His intention was to settle in Cleveland and practise his profession, and he doubtless would have done so but for the breaking out of the war. In 1861 he left the Senate to become Colonel of the Forty-second Ohio Regiment. At an earlier period of his life, and while a teacher, he had become a preacher of the Church of the Disciples—a sect known as the Campbellites. His ministerial work was, however, incidental, and not at any time a regular pursuit, though his friends desired him to adopt it as such.

Mr. Garfield went to the war a poor man, not even owning a home, and it was with money saved while in the service that his wife bought a house and lot at Hiram, for which $800 was paid. His wife and children lived in that modest little cottage, which he greatly improved, and owned no other house until, in 1870, after several years of Congressional life, he built himself a dwelling in Washington. When he went to the Senate his salary of $5,000 a year was the largest amount of money he had ever earned, and with a feeling of lessened pecuniary cares was entertained the desire of owning a farm in Ohio, where his fast-growing boys could spend their vacations, and where he could give his wife and himself the rest they required after the busy winters in Washington. Lawnfield, a place now historic, was purchased, and Mrs. Garfield designed the house, which was erected in 1880, and into which the family moved that summer.

The long years of the war were spent by Mrs. Garfield at her home in Hiram. Her parents were living not far away, and the absence of the husband and father was as far as possible atoned for by the presence of relatives and the companionship of Mother Garfield, whose home was with her son from the time he had one to offer her. The months dragged slowly by, until after the battle of Corinth, when Mrs. Garfield was gladdened by the return of her husband, now Brigadier-General, who remained at home for six months suffering from fever and ague, contracted on the tow-path when a boy, and from the effects of which he was never able to completely rid himself.

On his return to the front he joined General Rosecrans as Chief of Staff, and at the battle of Chickamauga he won his Major-General’s stars.

It was during this absence that he lost his infant daughter, and when the news reached him he hastened home to attend the funeral. His dead child was photographed in his arms, and this picture is among the treasures cherished of him now. He was greatly attached to his children, and in speaking of his lost one and the circumstance mentioned, he said to his friend, President Hinsdale: “As I sat with that dead child in my arms my eyes rested upon my bright blue uniform, so recently bestowed upon me, and I thought: ‘How small are all the honors of this life—how insignificant are all its struggles and triumphs!’ I am grieved and broken in spirit at the great loss which has been inflicted upon me, but I can endure almost anything so long as this brave little woman is left me.”

While at the front the people of his district elected him to Congress; and, in 1863, his career in Washington began, and for eight terms he was re-elected. Afterward he was chosen to succeed Mr. Wade in the Senate. The first years General Garfield lived in Washington, whether in boarding-houses or in rented dwellings, his wife and himself were people of no great prominence socially, because they were poor; both were busy and their children absorbed their evenings. Their circle of friends was a charming one, however, because their quiet tastes and studious habits made them attractive to really accomplished people.

When Mrs. Garfield moved into her own house she was as happy as a woman could be, and her husband was not less pleased that he could at last shelter his children under his own roof and at his own fireside. Doubtless, this time spent in their modest home was as free from care as any they ever knew. But wherever they were they were happy together. The mother had her heart’s desire in giving her children the careful home training she could not have bestowed without such a home as she possessed. Her house was a real home because her husband was one with her in all things, and his life and hers were not separated in pleasure or in duty. She was as fond of books as he, and he was always her teacher. It was beyond doubt due to his influence over her life in its formative period that she became a teacher. Her appreciation of his ability and their kindred tastes made them comrades in study and in work. They were united in more than in their domestic relations, and grew nearer together as the years passed.

It is rarely that two people marry, who have known each other so long and so well as did this couple, and it is one of the causes of congratulation that their example has been so prominently set before the world. Men and women of the nobler sort, who appreciate the need there is in public life of notable examples of happy marriages will never regret that the opportunity was given this man and woman to discover their home-life to the people of this country, however much they may deplore the terrible calamity that was the means of unveiling the sacred side of their lives to the world. The comfort it is to the American people—in view of the world-wide publicity given the slightest circumstance connected with their career—that these two people were so admirable in their personal characters and in their home-life, has not been fully realized generally; but it is undeniably true that it was the one sweet strain that sang itself into the wounded hearts of a nation in their time of grief and pain.

Ten years before Mrs. Garfield went into the White House, and during one summer when the family were in Ohio, she was compelled to do much of her own work. In the temporary absence of her husband from home, she wrote him a letter, which, intended for no other eye than his, fell into the hands of President Hinsdale, who made an extract from it for the use of his pupils, as showing the character of the President’s wife and her views upon the subject of woman’s work. It is appropriate here, and is as follows:

“I am glad to tell that out of all the toil and disappointments of the summer just ended, I have risen up to a victory; that silence of thought since you have been away has won for my spirit a triumph. I read something like this the other day: ‘There is no healthy thought without labor, and thought makes the labor happy.’ Perhaps this is the way I have been able to climb up higher. It came to me one morning when I was making bread. I said to myself, ‘Here I am compelled by an inevitable necessity to make our bread this summer. Why not consider it a pleasant occupation, and make it so by trying to see what perfect bread I can make?’ It seemed like an inspiration, and the whole of life grew brighter. The very sunshine seemed flowing down through my spirit into the white loaves, and now I believe my table is furnished with better bread than ever before; and this truth, old as creation, seems just now to have become fully mine—that I need not be the shrinking slave of toil, but its regal master, making whatever I do yield me its best fruits. You have been king of your work so long that maybe you laugh at me for having lived so long without my crown, but I am too glad to have found it at all to be entirely discontented even by your merriment. Now, I wonder if right here does not lie the ‘terrible wrong,’ or at least some of it, of which the woman suffragists complain. The wrongly educated woman thinks her duties a disgrace, and frets under them or shrinks them if she can. She sees man triumphantly pursuing his vocations, and thinks it is the kind of work he does which makes him grand and regnant; whereas it is not the kind of work at all, but the way in which he does it.”

In this letter is discovered the quality for which Mrs. Garfield is distinguished—self-discipline. She is a woman fitted for emergencies, and it requires them to show her real worth. The control she has over her emotional nature gives her an immense advantage in meeting a trying exigency. She withstands surprises, shocks and disasters with a steady courage that commands respect, and long ago made her a heroine in the eyes of her husband. In speaking to a friend, a few months before he was inaugurated, while remarking upon some public man whose domestic affairs had crippled his course of usefulness, he said of her:

“I have been singularly fortunate in marrying a woman who has never given me any perplexity about anything she has said. I have never had to explain away words of hers. She has been so prudent that I have never been diverted from my work for one minute to take up any mistakes of hers. She is perfectly unstampedable. When things get worse and there is the most public clamor and the most danger to me and to us, then she is the coolest. Sometimes it looks a little blue before me, but I get courage from her perfect bravery.”

A Washington correspondent, in writing of Mrs. Garfield, paid her this tribute:

“She was in Washington City during the years of extravagance, and almost every Congressman’s wife had a carriage and every house competed for brilliant visitors. She lived through that time as if she belonged to a different social scale. She would not refuse to see anybody, but was seldom dressed as if ready for company. She never apologized for her appearance, and she made visits about twice or three times a year, generally calling on foot, but never failing to please with the sweetness of her countenance, the beauty of her eyes, and a self-restraint and reserve perfectly natural.”

Another correspondent, in referring to the same period, says:

“Quietly, but with the truest kindness, has Mrs. Garfield presided over her modest house at the corner of Thirteenth and I streets, in this city, during the years since General Garfield purchased it. In it she has entertained, often in the simplest style, but ever with old-fashioned, true-hearted hospitality, all of wit, wisdom, beauty that Washington has had during the years she has been here. She is an accomplished hostess as well as an accomplished woman—they’re two very different things. Living as the Garfields have had to live, in the most economical way, doing without elegant clothes, fine furniture, sumptuous food, good, new, and rare old books, dearer than all else to them, they have contributed more to make Washington winter life pleasant and profitable than many other families who have supplemented less taste and culture with more money. Mrs. Garfield’s receptions have been the largest ever held by the wife of a mere Representative. They have far surpassed those of more ambitious Senators’ wives, and have approximated those of the ladies of the Supreme Court and Cabinet families in size merely. In attractions they have stood abreast of any of them. This simply because Mrs. Garfield is a sweet-tempered, cultured, refined woman, in whose smile it is a pleasure to bask.

“When we consider that, without allowing her manifold cares to interfere with the performance of her social duties, she has managed her establishment alone, and personally conducted the training of her boys for college, we can conceive her superiority, with all her social success, to the mere ‘society leader.’ General Garfield is the president of our literary society, and during the past year it has met at his house. It was more pleasantly entertained there than it had ever been before. Mrs. Garfield exerted even her latent social powers that night, and it was difficult for her guests to break away from her delightful parlors.”

The summer preceding the Chicago Convention, the Garfield family went to Mentor rather late in the season, and remained there through the fall and winter. It had been their intention to return to Washington as usual before the reassembling of Congress, but the result of the Convention changed previous plans, and the household continued there until the week before the inauguration. During that time the crowds continually visiting Mentor left Mrs. Garfield but little time for relaxation and rest. She was in the midst of excitement of a political kind constantly, and to it were added the onerous duties of hostess—a position scarcely to be desired, under such circumstances. She shrank from the publicity which the nomination of her husband to the highest gift in the nation subjected her, though she met the requirements of the position with a pleasant demeanor and quiet reserve natural to her.

The newspapers abounded in personal allusions to the family, and many efforts were made to obtain her photograph for publication in the illustrated periodicals. This she would not permit, either during the canvass or after the election. It was not in her power, however, to prevent those who had her picture from showing it to their friends, and finally she recognized the natural desire of the public to see the photograph of the Lady of the White House, and she sat for one that was approved by herself and husband. The engraving accompanying this sketch is from that photograph, and is a correct likeness of her, as she appeared at that time.

Though the newspapers could not obtain her photograph, the correspondents made pen-pictures of herself and her home. One of them (writing to the Detroit Evening News) gave so pleasant a picture of her that it is reproduced in part. It was written shortly after the election:

“The historic orchard and pumpkin-fields were lying peacefully now under their snowy covering, and giving no signs of the recent scenes of devastation. Crossing the wide veranda, the solitary pilgrim rang the bell, and was ushered by a wonderfully patient-looking colored man-servant into the reception-room, although that is quite too formal a name to give a room combining such an air of comfort with its elegance; it is the emanation of an artist and a fireside genius in one, and you are not surprised to learn later that the mistress of the mansion is an artist of considerable skill. A royal grate-fire burns brightly at one end of the room, over which is a Queen Anne mantel, with cabinet photographs of Garfield and Arthur, painted candles, and numerous articles of bric-a-brac. At the opposite end of the apartment stands a fine upright piano, adorned with photographs of Hancock, Marshall Jewell and Ole Bull. Over this is a French picture in bright watercolors, on one side of which hangs a copy of Meissonier’s Napoleon, on the other a little landscape, painted and given her, Mrs. Garfield relates, by her old drawing teacher, of whom she tells some interesting reminiscences.

“The quiet tinted walls of the reception-room are further adorned with large portraits of the General and his mother, one of Alexander Campbell, the founder of the faith which Garfield indorses, and a number of other pieces, among them a copy of Miss Ransom’s ‘Hagar and her Son,’ from—‘let me see if I can remember the name,’ Mrs. Garfield said, turning the picture and spelling out the Italian name from a card on the back. ‘Miss Ransom put the card there so that I shouldn’t forget the name, because he was not one of the best known painters.’

“‘And this,’ pointing to a little gilt frame decorated with pansies, ‘was sent to the General by a little Vermont girl, her own work, and the verse inscribed on it was written for her by Whittier.’

“In this interest in her pictures and their histories Mrs. Garfield showed constantly the artistic element in her nature, as well as in a hundred touches about the rooms.

“A small-figured dark carpet covered the floor, a Smyrna rug lay before the fire, in the glow of which sat the famous grandmother, a quaint little figure, making with her snowy hair and cap, and her knitting-work, a fitting adjunct to an ‘interior’ charming enough for anybody’s pencil. There were easy-chairs and lounges, speaking of solid comfort, and a little centre-table piled up carelessly with all kinds of books, school-books, story-books, a gay-colored copy of Chic, a life of the President-elect, and ‘Bits of Talk,’ by H. H., being among them. And there were also upon that table—yes, actually, dear prim housekeepers—the well-known slouch hat of the General’s, and a roll of red flannel, with a thimble beside it.

“Everywhere—in every nook and corner—there are books. A case in the parlor contains editions of Waverley and Dickens, French history in the original, old English poets and dramatists richly bound in black and gold, and a choice collection of miscellaneous works; in the little hallway leading to the dining-room are books, and in the dining-room itself more books. The last is a cheery room with its handsome tiled mantle, open fire, pictures and shining silver. There is everywhere evidence of the dainty housekeeper.

“The pilgrim wandered out through the back regions of the house where the tin wash-basin and milk-cans, which were really seen, would no doubt be deemed objects of sacred interest to the enthusiastic adorer, and crossed over to the detached office, whose walls are lined with ponderous volumes, and where busy clerks and a peculiar hum of the wires gives one some idea of the work done there. A peculiarity of the telegraph wires running into General Garfield’s office is that the sound of Cleveland’s church bells is conveyed distinctly over them, thirty miles.

“Under a tree near the office was a spirited picture. The two youngest scions of the house and the great Newfoundland dog, all three in a state of frantic delight, were chasing a coon which had been sent the General by train that morning, a sample of the odd and incongruous quality of the presents which are showered upon the family. Returning to the parlor, the visitor found Mrs. Garfield seated before the fire, and received her pleasant and cordial consent to the sketching of her home for the benefit of the public, who have a natural and loyal interest in it. To those who would wish to see a brilliant society leader in the White House, Mrs. Garfield will perhaps be a disappointment; but those who have been led to think of her as a retiring, mere domestic woman, inadequate to the position, will also be disappointed. She is a lady of admirable self-poise, dignity and thorough culture, reserved yet affable, and with the distinguishing trait of genuineness. There is not a trace of affectation about her. A Mentor gentleman remarked, ‘There isn’t a family in town, apparently, so little set up by the situation as the Garfields.’

“When asked if she dreaded the coming responsibilities (so much has been said of her retiring nature), she said, slowly, with her brown eyes fixed thoughtfully on the fire: ‘Yes, in many ways; but it has always been my experience, so far, that one grows fitted for responsibility as it comes. My greatest fear is that the time will slip by, and when it is over I shall have it to look back to with regret for the many things that ought to have been done.’

“With such a spirit it will be safe to trust the woman influence in the next administration. That it is going to be an influence that will be felt, no one who is acquainted with Mrs. Garfield doubts....

“Her youth was spent quietly at Hiram, and there were struggles connected with it, in obtaining her education, which have doubtless aided in developing her self-reliant spirit. Since marriage her life has been devoted to her family, but she has always given up a great deal of time to the rites of hospitality.

“‘Bless you,’ said a local gossip, ‘they have always been overrun with visitors. Why, Mrs. Garfield hasn’t had a chance to get acquainted, hardly, with people here.’ The same oracle said: ‘Mrs. Garfield is wonderfully firm; if she once makes up her mind to a thing nothing can turn her. Now, the general can be coaxed, but they both have splendid family government.’... The pilgrim boarded the train, with a good-bye, for Mentor, and an uncommonly pleasant picture tucked away in his memory of a charming home, and of the future mistress of the White House. The latter picture is in personnel a slender, graceful lady, with a transparently clear complexion, with delicate features, and clear, penetrating, brown eyes; hair the same shade of brown, worn in a braid at the back, and frizzed quite in conventional style in front. A dark blue dress, simple lace tie, and little or no jewelry, completed the lady’s home appearance.

“A gentleman, well acquainted with the family, remarked: ‘Mrs. Garfield looks a little worn now, and no wonder. She has changed a good deal within the last year. When she got the telegram announcing the nomination the tears came into her eyes, and when she was asked if she was not glad and proud to hear it, she said: “Oh, yes; but it is a terrible responsibility to come to him and to me;” but I tell you she has put her shoulder to the wheel bravely so far, and she will continue to the end.’”

The allusion to Miss Ransom, the artist, in this extract, recalls the fact that a year or more previous to the election, General Garfield commissioned her to paint a portrait of Mrs. Garfield. The two were old Cleveland friends, and had been intimately associated for years. The portrait was painted, and during the week of the inauguration it was seen by many strangers in Washington who visited her studio. She told a characteristic thing of Mrs. Garfield in connection with this portrait. Miss Ransom for a background sketched a beautiful view from the Soldiers’ Home, showing the Capitol, and the Potomac, like a thread of silver, in the far distance. Mrs. Garfield objected to it, saying, “That will do for a President’s wife who resides at the Soldiers’ Home a part of each year, but not for me.” The artist argued and pleaded, but in vain. Mrs. Garfield was decided in her mind, and refused to have it. She however added to her objection the remark, that she would be pleased if there could be introduced into the picture a view of Franklin Park—“the corner opposite my window, where I have so often watched my children at play,” she said. The artist still demurred, on the ground that the park was so near and so shut in that it was impossible to get the perspective requisite for a good background, but the children and the General were delighted with Mrs. Garfield’s idea, and Miss Ransom yielded to their united request, and the portrait was finished accordingly. General Garfield was greatly pleased with the result, and would not let the portrait be taken from Washington to the artist’s studio in Cleveland, where she proposed to complete it, lest something might befall it in the transportation.

Of the mother of General Garfield much was said previous to the inauguration, and has been since. She is the first mother of a President who has lived in the White House, and by reason of the deference and distinction her son showed her has been the recipient of exceptional attentions. No one who ever saw her in his company but felt that an unusual tie bound them. They were the ideal mother and son, and were so recognized years before he had grown into a public man. “You never see General Garfield at church without his wife and mother,” was the remark of a resident of Washington who lived near the Church of the Disciples. “He goes by here almost every Sunday with his wife on one arm and his mother on the other.”

People who called at the house saw the bright old lady, who was “grandma” to so many children, and knew by her sunshiny manner that she was an honored member of the family—not a mere guest or an inmate of the house. She was “mother” to Mrs. Garfield as well as to her son, and the two women loved each other because their hearts were centred in him.

Many incidents are related of her sterling worth and integrity of character. Few women of to-day have known such rugged experiences with poverty as she had for long years after she lost her young husband. She must have been possessed of intense force of will, or she would have failed in the work she accomplished. All her children were blessings to her, and honored her absolutely. She lived for years a life of toil, and in the neighborhood of the old home are told many circumstances creditable to her. Her eldest son was a little boy when his father died, and was not able to wield an axe. She wanted fences made, and her neighbors offered to do the job for her, as they did for each other. The custom was a common one, and all that was expected in return was a supply of whiskey. She refused to furnish liquor to them—she the widow, with fatherless boys about her, watching her example and knowing no other guide. She wielded her maul and split her own rails, without subjecting her boys to temptation or perilling their future by any act of hers. Widow Garfield would not open her door to an enemy too strong for women to cope with in strangers and the bitterest of foes to encounter in the home circle, and wisely decided to save her young at whatever sacrifice. If people occasionally wondered at the depth of her children’s love, and the jealous care they bestowed upon her, it was because she had earned such riches for herself and was wearing the crown that was of her own making.

The scene at the inauguration of her son—when he stood in the presence of the most distinguished men and women of the land, and saw a sea of human beings before him such as no man could count, and turning from them all kissed his old mother first and then his wife—will never be forgotten. The people could talk of nothing else then, and cannot now recall the event without dwelling upon it. The new President might well have overlooked his mother at such a time and been formal with his wife, but he was husband and son first, and the young men who witnessed the spectacle were benefited and blessed by it.

Such filial and husbandly devotion won President Garfield the respect of wives and mothers throughout the land—a respect which kindled into affection in the time that came. A speedy illustration of the effect of this act was given by a young school-girl who had been an eye-witness to it, and whose enthusiasm was checked by her companion. “It was done for effect,” he teasingly remarked. “It was done because he is a knight—a real Sir Galahad!” she replied, the bright eyes sparkling, the rosy cheeks flushing, as she defended her hero. That little act was the tie that bound the women of this country to those two women as nothing else could, and it was an assurance of a happy home which aroused generous American sentiment for the new White House occupants.

Mrs. Garfield was eighty years of age when her youngest child entered upon the performance of the highest office in his country, and very naturally she was the object of much sincere interest. When the Presidential party reached Washington, she was escorted from the car by her son and placed in the carriage of President Hayes, which awaited her coming. She was driven to the White House direct, and was there to welcome her son and daughter when they came over from the Riggs House in the evening to see her. Her heart must have throbbed with thankfulness and delight that night as she looked back over the years that lay behind her, thought of the husband dead for fifty years, and dwelt upon the career of her boy, who had grown up by her side, and was the first in the land and ruler of a nation.

Incidents of her early life are rare, and from a relative, an aged man, who knew her in girlhood, these facts are obtained:

“Eliza Ballou and a sister, about 1820, by the death of their parents, were left alone in the world and unprovided for, so far as the inheritance or possession of property was concerned. Preferring to live among relatives, one went to reside with an uncle in northern Ohio, and the other, Eliza, came to another uncle, the father of Samuel Arnold, who then lived on a farm near Norwich, Muskingum county, Ohio. There Eliza Ballou made her home, cheerfully helping at the house or in the field, as was then sometimes the custom in a pioneer country. Having something more than what at that day was an ordinary education, Eliza procured about twenty pupils and taught a summer school. The school-house was one of the most primitive kind, and stood in the edge of a dense and heavily-timbered woods. One day there came up a fearful storm of wind and rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning. The woods were badly wrecked, but the wind left the old log school-house uninjured. Not so the lightning. A bolt struck a tree that projected closely over the roof and then the roof of the building itself. Some of the pupils were greatly alarmed, and no doubt thought it the crack of doom or day of judgment. The teacher, as calm and collected as possible, tried to quiet her pupils and keep them in their places. A man who was one of the pupils, in speaking of the occurrence, says that for a little while he remembered nothing, and then he looked around and saw the teacher and all the pupils lying dead on the floor, as he thought. Presently the teacher began to move a little, and rose to her feet. Then, one by one, the pupils got up, with a single exception. Help, medical and otherwise, was obtained as soon as possible for this one, and, though life was saved for a time, reason had forever fled. This was a fearful experience for a young female teacher, and it probably ended her career as an instructress.

“Eliza Ballou’s sister married in northern Ohio, and while on a visit to her the former made the acquaintance of Abram Garfield, and subsequently married him. When James was about sixteen years old, he and his widowed mother visited Muskingum county in search of a school for the young man. They visited the family of the elder Arnold, at Norwich, and also the family of Samuel Arnold, now a citizen of New Lexington, and before referred to. The unusual intelligence of the boy and the astonishing affection between mother and son were what chiefly impressed itself upon the minds of those who entertained the poor humble boy who was to become a future President of the United States, and die a martyr to the high official position, more widely lamented than any other man had ever been. There appeared to be no opening for a school in the neighborhood of Norwich, and mother and son went to Uncle Ballou’s, in another part of the county, where James got a school and taught a single term. The money thus earned he applied in further educating himself. And this was why he and his mother were hunting a school.”

Forty-five years later the proudest day of that mother’s life had come, and she went forth to meet it, treading lightly, forgetting that she was old, and remembering that it was “her baby” who was to be made President of the United States. “There is the President’s mother,” was whispered among the throng, as a small, elderly lady, dressed in black silk, with her white head covered with a close-fitting bonnet, stepped into the Senate gallery. It was the woman in her that made her so calm and composed as she looked down upon the scene before her; it was the mother in her that caused her withered cheeks to flush and the tears to start as she saw her son come upon the floor, surrounded by the chief officers of the nation.

She was the first to receive him as he entered the Executive Mansion, and a sweeter picture has rarely been seen on earth than this little mother presented as she advanced, with a proud step and eyes full of tears, to greet her son. What mattered it to her if the grandest civil and military procession ever seen in Washington had escorted him there and was awaiting his presence impatiently! She was his mother by right of royal reverence as by ties of nature, and she was not disappointed in the honor paid her. She could walk under his outstretched arm thirty years before without stooping; but he paid her the same deference he gave her when he was a little son and not a great man—when she was a hard-toiling and strong-armed woman, and not the mother of the Chief Magistrate of the country.

Despite her fatigue she wanted to see all that was done in her son’s honor, and when the party left the lunch-table and went to the reviewing-stand on the avenue in front of the Mansion, Mother Garfield was one of the number, and for a long while sat near her son enjoying the sight. The vast multitude that filed in front of that stand scarcely had time to note the presence of the venerable woman before them, but the people about her watched her with a satisfaction almost undefinable to themselves and never to be forgotten now, in view of all that has transpired.

A few days after she was established in the White House she wrote a letter to a relative in the West which, as here given, does not show the handwriting tremulous with age, yet exhibits all the beautiful spirit of the writer: