It
might be a stepping stone for a greater effort in life and receive the
plaudits of "Well done!" from those who have felt your influence and
respected a noble and self-sustaining woman. What more could anyone
ask? This great outpouring of tender solicitude, sympathy and charity
toward me in my great calamity, shall always be an oasis in the wide
desert of life that will make me return in my memory as long as life
shall last, and rest and be refreshed, feeling it was God's way to
find the bread that had been cast upon the waters through the years of
my active life in every city where I have ever lived. To all who were
thus kind I have built a lasting monument of gratitude that will not
crumble in the years yet remaining in my life. I feel I must make some
acknowledgment to all for these acts of kindness toward me in my
distress, which was so unnecessarily brought upon me, I am sorry to
say, by careless inattention of an unknown conductor.
This accident closed the usefulness of an energetic life. For sixty
years I had been active in many lines of endeavor such as drawing,
writing, painting, sewing and singing. The whole year of 1902 I was
convalescing and trying to regain my strength and learning to walk. It
was slow work. The expenses were going on and I could not be without a
nurse. I was unable to teach the pupils that I had before the
accident. In my planning I decided to paint and etch on linen. "I can
make pretty cards of all kinds, why not do something like this, try at
any rate.
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