there begins to appear an entirely new type of entries. They tell of journeys taken, of new sights, new acquaintances and of important persons who had been met. These experiences came after the main responsibilities of home had passed to others, but before her own health had become so impaired that trips away from home could not comfortably be made. Some of these journeys she was privileged to take with her husband; others after he had been called home, but none was ever taken without recorded thanksgiving for the pleasure it gave, and gratitude to those who made it possible. The first of these trips away from home most vividly remembered, was one she and her husband took in 1896, to attend Fred’s graduation from Monmouth College. Fred was chosen as Class speaker, and gave his parents quite a shock by making a political speech, the first sentence being, “I am a Democrat, and my father is a Democrat,”—a speech which doubtless pleased his father, but left his mother rather puzzled, since she was expecting something of a more literary nature. This was followed with other trips, to California, and to Florida when the Ohio winters became too severe. There were trips to see the children and grandchildren—trips to visit relatives and friends who had not been seen for decades; one travelling in foreign lands, or beginning life anew in a strange place could not have written more enthusiastically than she did about these travels. The last of these journeys which had been planned for her, she was not permitted to make. Fred, her son, who was responsible for all these journeys, was getting his affairs in shape to take his mother to California in a private car and spend a few months with her in that land of sunshine and flowers, which in her failing- health, she had learned to love; but God had better things for her, a journey for which she was far better prepared. While it is a comfort for her children, for whom she had sacrificed so much, to know that their mother was to have these happy experiences, the big lesson one may learn from her life is that her greatest influence was not at the beginning or at the ending of her days on the farm, but in those middle years when carrying burdens which seemed at times beyond endurance; it was in planning and praying and sacrificing for her children’s future and their place in the Church and in the world. 46
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