If it is true, as some people allege, that marriage is a lottery, then
all I have to say regarding it is that I drew the capital prize and
consequently may well be regarded as a lucky man, for truer, fonder, and
more sensible wife than I have, or a happier home cannot be found even
though you search the wide world over. It was in Philadelphia that I
wooed and won her, and I was by no means the only contestant that was in
the field for her heart and hand. There were others, and one in
particular that was far better looking and much more of a lady's man
than myself, but when he found that I had a pull at the weights he
retired, though not without a struggle, and left me in undisputed
possession of the field.
Just why I happened to be the successful suitor is now, and always has
been, to me a mystery. I have asked Mrs. Anson to explain, but somehow I
can get very little satisfaction. I was by no means a model man in the
early days of my courtship, as my experiences detailed elsewhere go to
prove, but I was an honest and faithful wooer, as my wife can testify,
and that perhaps had as much to do with the successful termination of my
suit as anything. I had been used to having everything that I wanted
from my babyhood up, and after I had once made up my mind that I wanted
my wife, which I did very early in our acquaintance, I laid siege to her
heart with all the artifices that I could command.
I am sometimes inclined to believe that I fell in love with her, at
least part way, the very first time that I met her, else why should I
remember her so vividly?
Her name was Virginia M. Fiegal, and she was one of a family of two, and
the only daughter, her father being John Fiegal, a hotel and restaurant
man in the Quaker City.
The first time that I ever saw her was at a ball given by the National
Guards in Philadelphia, and though she was then but a fair-haired,
blue-eyed girl of some twelve or thirteen summers, and still in short
dresses, she attracted my attention. Just how she was dressed on that
occasion I could not tell you to save my life, nor do I think I could
have done so an hour after the ball was over, but for all that the
memory of her sweet face and girlish ways lingered with me long after
the strains of music had died away and the ball-room was given over to
the flitting shadows.
Some months, or weeks, perhaps, I have really forgotten which, drifted
by before I saw her again, and then it was at a club ball, and this time
I paid her considerable attention, in fact, I liked her better than any
girl that I had yet met and was not afraid to show it, although I could
not then muster up the necessary courage to go on boldly about my
wooing. In fact, I left a great deal to chance, and chance in this case
treated me very kindly.
Some time later, when the summer days were long, I met her again in
company with a Miss Cobb, later the wife of Johnnie McMullen, the
base-ball pitcher, at Fairmount Park, and that was the day of my
undoing. After a pleasant time I accompanied her home to luncheon at
her invitation, and that I had lost my heart long before the door of
her house was reached I am now certain.
Once inside the door I asked her rather abruptly if her father or mother
was at home, and I fancied she looked rather relieved when she found out
that the only reason that I had asked her was that I wanted to smoke a
cigar, and not to loot the house of its valuables.
Prior to that time I had circulated among the ladies but little, my
whole mind having been concentrated on base-ball and billiard playing,
and the particular fit of my coat or the fashion of my trousers caused
me but little concern. From that afternoon on, however, things were
different, and I am afraid that I spent more time before the mirror than
was really necessary. I also began to hunt up excuses of various kinds
for visiting the house of the Fiegals, and some of these were of the
flimsiest character. I fancied then that I was deceiving the entire
family, but I know now that I was deceiving only myself.
I was not the only ball player that laid siege to Miss Virginia's heart
in those days. There was another, the handsome and debonair Charlie
Snyder, who was a great favorite with the girls wherever he went. I
became jealous very early in the game of Charlie's attentions to the
young lady that I had determined upon making Mrs. Anson. It was rather
annoying to have him dropping in when I had planned to have her all to
myself for an evening, and still more annoying to find him snugly
ensconced in the parlor when I myself put in an appearance on the scene.
So unbearable did this become that I finally informed him that I would
stand no more trespassing on my stamping grounds, and advised him to
keep away. But to this he paid but little attention and it was not until
my sweetheart herself, at my request, gave him his conge that he
refrained from longer calling at the house. It was the old story of "two
is company, three is none," and I was greatly relieved when he abandoned
the field.
I was now the fair Virginia's steady company, and long before I came to
Chicago we understood each other so well that I ceased to worry about
any of the callers at her home and began to dream of the time when I
should have one of my own in which she should be the presiding genius of
the hearth-stone.
She was not in favor of my coming to Chicago, and had it been possible
for me to remain with honor in Philadelphia I should have done so, but
that being impossible I left for the great metropolis of the West,
promising to return for her providing her father would give his consent
to our marriage as soon as possible.
I think one of the first things almost that I did after arriving in
Chicago was to write the daddy of my sweetheart asking for her hand. I
had been a little afraid to do so when at close range, but the farther
away I went the bolder I became, for I knew that whatever his answer
might be I was certainly out of any personal danger.
The old gentleman's answer was, however, a favorable one, and so after
my first season's play in Chicago was over I returned to Philadelphia
and there was united to the woman of my choice, and I am frank to
confess that I was more nervous when I faced the minister on that
occasion that I ever was when, bat in hand, I stood before the swiftest
pitcher in the league.
The first little visitor that came to us was a baby girl that we called
Grace, who was born October 6, 1877. That seems a long time ago now. The
baby Grace has grown to womanhood's estate and is the happy wife of
Walter H. Clough, and the proud mother of Anson McNeal Clough, who was
born May 7, 1899, and who will be taught to call me "grandpa" as soon as
his baby lips can lisp the words.
Adrian Hulbert Anson was our next baby. He was born Sept. 4, 1882, and
died four days afterward, that being the first grief that we had known
since our marriage. Another daughter, Adele, crept into our hearts and
household April 24th, 1884, and is still with us.
Adrian C. Anson Jr. came into the world on September 4th, 1887, and died
on the eighteenth day of January following. He lived the longest of all
of my boys and his death was the cause of great grief both to his mother
and myself.
The storks brought me another daughter, my little Dorothy, on August
13th, 1889, and she, thank God, is still engaged in making sunshine for
us all.
John Henry Anson was born on May 3d, 1892, but four days later the angel
of Death again stopped at my threshold and when he departed he bore a
baby boy in his arms, whither I know not, but to a better world that
this I feel certain, and one to which his baby brothers had journeyed
before him.
Virginia Jeanette arrived November 22d, 1899, and has already learned to
kick at the umpire when her meals are not furnished as promptly as she
has reason to think they should be. She is a strong, healthy baby, and
bids fair to remain with us for some years to come.
Before returning again to the ball field, on which the greater portion
of my life has been spent, I wish to record the fact that all that I
have and all that I have earned in the way both of money and reputation
in later years I owe not to myself, but to Mrs. Anson. She has been to
me a helpmeet in the truest and best sense of the word, rejoicing with
me in the days of my success and sympathizing with me in the days of my
adversity.
It was owing to her good counsel that I braced up in the days when she
was my sweetheart, and it was to please her that I have staid braced up
ever since, and am consequently still strong in mind and limb and as
healthy a specimen of an athlete as you can find in a year's travel,
albeit a little too heavy to run the bases still and play the game of
ball that I used to play.
I have never found it necessary when I have lost $250 on a horse race or
a match of any kind to go home and inform Mrs. Anson that owing to my
bad judgment I had lost $2.50, but on the contrary I have made it a
point to tell her the truth at all times, so that she knows just as well
how I stand to-day as I do myself.
She and I are not only husband and wife in the truest sense of the word,
but we are boon companions as well, and I always enjoy myself better on
a trip when Mrs. Anson accompanies me that I do if I am alone.
I am as proud of my daughters as any man can well be and my only desire
is that they shall all be as good as their mother and make the husbands
of their choice as good and true wives.
At the present writing the only one of my birds that has left its parent
nest and started out to build a home of its own is in Baltimore, where
her husband, as fine a fellow as any man could wish to have for a
son-in-law, is at present engaged in superintending the putting up of an
office building contracted for the George H. Fuller Co., of Chicago, in
whose employ he is.