Mr. Goodwin, the furniture dealer,
furnished the house with $1,100 worth of furniture and I began to help
lessen the burden already so heavy. Youth was in my favor, being now
thirty-four years old. The children were at school and I still held my
church position and began to sing at concerts and entertainments. My
rooms were filled with the best of roomers and my house brought me in
$65 over my rent which was also $65 a month. I had no piano and no
place for one, as the children and I slept in the kitchen. I had given
up every available room to make the house pay. Mrs. Dr. Howard
permitted me to use her piano, so after the work was done I was
obliged to walk nine blocks to practice each day. When I thought
everything was going all right Mr. Blake began to act strangely. The
failure had affected him more than he let me know, and he was so
stunned by the blow that he had plunged us into poverty and it weighed
so on his mind that Dr. H.L. Baldwin advised a sea voyage. So we wrote
to his brother who was in Melbourne to expect him on a certain ship.
All was favorable and he sailed away the latter part of 1869. His
brain was softening and there was no hope for him if he remained.
After weeks of sailing he arrived safely in Melbourne. He so far
recovered that he was able to accept a position as expert in the
Omnibus railway office which he filled for one year and a half. In the
meantime I had been able to pay for all the furniture, through my
roomers and singing and sewing, but the large house was too much for
me, with sewing until twelve at night, and I concluded to take a
smaller house and called on Mr.
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