at the siege of Charleston, and served for a considerable period in the
hospitals of Richmond.
[Illustration: Clara Barton]
When the war was ended and the survivors of the great armies were
marching homeward, her heart was touched by the distress in many
homes where sons and fathers and brothers were among those listed as
"missing." In all, there were 80,000 men of whom no definite report
could be given to their friends. She was assisting President Lincoln in
answering the hundreds of heartbroken letters, imploring news, which
poured in from all over the land when his tragic death left her alone
with the task. Then, as no funds were available to finance a thorough
investigation of every sort of record of States, hospitals, prisons,
and battle-fields, she maintained out of her own means a bureau to
prosecute the search.
Four years were spent in this great labor, during which time Miss
Barton made many public addresses, the proceeds of which were devoted
to the cause. One evening in the winter of 1868, while in the midst
of a lecture, her voice suddenly left her. This was the beginning of
a complete nervous collapse. The hardships and prolonged strain had,
in spite of her robust constitution and iron will, told at last on the
endurance of that loyal worker.
When able to travel, she went to Geneva, Switzerland, in the hope of
winning back her health and strength. Soon after her arrival she was
visited by the president and members of the "International Committee
for the Relief of the Wounded in War," who came to learn why the United
States had refused to sign the Treaty of Geneva, providing for the
relief of sick and wounded soldiers. Of all the civilized nations, our
great republic alone most unaccountably held aloof.
Miss Barton at once set herself to learn all she could about the
ideals and methods of the International Red Cross, and during the
Franco-Prussian War she had abundant opportunity to see and experience
its practical working on the battle-field.
At the outbreak of the war in 1870 she was urged to go as a leader,
taking the same part that she had borne in the Civil War.
"I had not strength to trust for that," said Clara Barton, "and declined
with thanks, promising to follow in my own time and way; and I did
follow within a week. As I journeyed on," she continued, "I saw the
work of these Red Cross societies in the field accomplishing in four
months under their systematic organization what we failed to accomplish
in four years without it--no mistakes, no needless suffering, no waste,
no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever
that little flag made its way--a whole continent marshaled under the
banner of the Red Cross. As I saw all this and joined and worked in it,
you will not wonder that I said to myself 'if I live to return to my
country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that
treaty.'"
Months of service in caring for the wounded and the helpless victims
of siege and famine were followed by a period of nervous exhaustion
from which she but slowly crept back to her former hold on health. At
last she was able to return to America to devote herself to bringing
her country into line with the Red Cross movement. She found that
traditionary prejudice against "entangling alliances with other powers,"
together with a singular failure to comprehend the vital importance of
the matter, militated against the great cause.
"Why should we make provision for the wounded?" it was said. "We shall
never have another war; we have learned our lesson."
It came to Miss Barton then that the work of the Red Cross should
be extended to disasters, such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and
epidemics--"great public calamities which require, like war, prompt and
well-organized help."
Years of devoted missionary work with preoccupied officials and a
heedless, short-sighted public at length bore fruit. After the Geneva
Treaty received the signature of President Arthur on March 1, 1882, it
was promptly ratified by the Senate, and the American National Red
Cross came into being, with Clara Barton as its first president. Through
her influence, too, the International Congress of Berne adopted the
"American Amendment," which dealt with the extension of the Red Cross to
relief measures in great calamities occurring in times of peace.
The story of her life from this time on is one with the story of the
work of the Red Cross during the stress of such disasters as the
Mississippi River floods, the Texas famine in 1885, the Charleston
earthquake in 1886, the Johnstown flood in 1899, the Russian famine
in 1892, and the Spanish-American War. The prompt, efficient methods
followed in the relief of the flood sufferers along the Mississippi in
1884 may serve to illustrate the sane, constructive character of her
work.
Supply centers were established, and a steamer chartered to ply back
and forth carrying help and hope to the distracted human creatures who
stood "wringing their hands on a frozen, fireless shore--with every
coal-pit filled with water." For three weeks she patrolled the river,
distributing food, clothing, and fuel, caring for the sick, and, in
order to establish at once normal conditions of life, providing the
people with many thousands of dollars' worth of building material,
seeds, and farm implements, thus making it possible for them to help
themselves and in work find a cure for their benumbing distress.
"Our Lady of the Red Cross" lived past her ninetieth birthday, but her
real life is measured by deeds, not days. It was truly a long one, rich
in the joy of service. She abundantly proved the truth of the words: "We
gain in so far as we give. If we would find our life, we must be willing
to lose it."
A MAIDEN CRUSADER: FRANCES E. WILLARD
Instead of peace, I was to participate in war; instead of
the sweetness of home, I was to become a wanderer on the face
of the earth; but I have felt that a great promotion came to
me when I was counted worthy to be a worker in the organized
crusade for "God and Home and Native Land."... If I were asked
the mission of the ideal woman, I would say it is to make the
whole world homelike. The true woman will make every place she
enters homelike--and she will enter every place in this wide
world.
FRANCES E. WILLARD.
A MAIDEN CRUSADER
There is no place like a young college town in a young country for
untroubled optimism. Hope blossoms there as nowhere else; the ideal ever
beckons at the next turn in the road. When Josiah Willard brought his
little family to Oberlin, it seemed to them all that a new golden age of
opportunity was theirs. Even Frances, who was little more than a baby,
drank in the spirit of the place with the air she breathed.
It was not hard to believe in a golden age when one happened to see
little Frances, or "Frank," Willard dancing like a sunbeam about the
campus. She liked to play about the big buildings, where father went
every day with his big books, and watch for him to come out. Sometimes
one of the students would stop to speak to her; sometimes a group would
gather about while, with fair hair flying and small arms waving, in a
voice incredibly clear and bird-like, she "said a piece" that mother had
taught her.
"Is that a little professorling?" asked a new-comer one day, attracted
by the child's cherub face and darting, fairylike ways.
"Guess again!" returned a dignified senior. "Her father is one of the
students. Haven't you noticed that fine-looking Willard? The mother,
too, knows how to appreciate a college, I understand--used to be a
teacher back in New York where they came from."
"You don't mean to say that this happy little goldfinch is the child of
two such solemn owls!" exclaimed the other.
"Nothing of the sort. They are very wide-awake, alive sort of people, I
assure you,--the kind who'd make a success of anything. The father wants
to be a preacher, they say--wait, there he comes now!"
It was plain to be seen that Mr. Willard was an alert, capable man and a
good father. The little girl ran to him with a joyful cry, and a sturdy
lad who had been trying to climb a tree bounded forward at the same
time.
"I trust that my small fry haven't been making trouble," said the man,
giving his free hand to Frances and graciously allowing Oliver to carry
two of his armful of books.
"Only making friends," the senior responded genially, "and one can see
that they can't very well help that."
The Oberlin years were a happy, friendly time for all the family. While
both father and mother were working hard to make the most of their
long-delayed opportunity for a liberal education, they delighted above
all in the companionship of neighbors with tastes like their own. After
five years, however, it became clear that the future was not to be after
their planning. Mr. Willard's health failed, and a wise doctor said that
he must leave his book-world, and take up a free, active life in the
open. So the little family joined the army of westward-moving pioneers.
Can you picture the three prairie-schooners that carried them and all
their goods to the new home? The father drove the first, Oliver geehawed
proudly from the high perch of the next, and mother sat in the third,
with Frances and little sister Mary on a cushioned throne made out of
father's topsyturvy desk. For nearly thirty days the little caravan made
its way--now through forests, now across great sweeping prairies, now
over bumping corduroy roads that crossed stretches of swampy ground.
They cooked their bacon and potatoes, gypsy-fashion, on the ground, and
slept under the white hoods of their long wagons, when they were not
kept awake by the howling of wolves.
When Sunday came, they rested wherever the day found them--sometimes on
the rolling prairie, where their only shelter from rain and sun was the
homely schooner, but where at night they could look up at the great tent
of the starry heavens; sometimes in the cathedral of the forest, where
they found Jack-in-the-pulpit preaching to the other wild-flowers and
birds and breezes singing an anthem of praise.
[Illustration: _Photo by Brown Bros._
Frances E. Willard]
It was truly a new world through which they made their way--beginnings
all about--the roughest, crudest sort of beginnings, glorified by the
brightest hopes. Tiny cabins were planted on the edge of the prairies;
rough huts of logs were dropped down in clearings in the forest.
Everywhere people were working with an energy that could not be
daunted--felling trees, sowing, harvesting, building. As they passed by
the end of Lake Michigan they caught a glimpse of a small, struggling
village in the midst of a dark, hopeless-looking morass, from which they
turned aside on seeing the warning sign _No bottom here_. That little
settlement in the swamp was Chicago.
Northward they journeyed to Wisconsin, where on the bluffs above Rock
River, not far from Janesville, they found a spot with fertile prairie
on one side and sheltering, wooded hills on the other. It seemed as if
the place fairly called to them: "This is home. You are my people. My
fields and hills and river have been waiting many a year just for you!"
Here Mr. Willard planted the roof-tree, using timber that his own ax
had wrested from the forest. Year by year it grew with their life.
"Forest Home," as they lovingly called it, was a low, rambling dwelling,
covered with trailing vines and all but hidden away in a grove of oaks
and evergreens. It seemed as if Nature had taken over the work of their
hands--house, barns, fields, and orchards--and made them her dearest
care. Here were people after her own heart, people who went out eagerly
to meet and use the things that each day brought. They found real zest
in plowing fields, laying fences, raising cattle, and learning the ways
of soil and weather. They learned how to keep rats and gophers from
devouring their crops, how to bank up the house as a protection from
hurricanes, and how to fight the prairie fires with fire.
Frank Willard grew as the trees grew, quite naturally, gathering
strength from the life about her. She had her share in the daily tasks;
she had, too, a chance for free, happy, good times. There was but one
other family of children near enough to share their plays, but the
fun was never dependent on numbers or novelty. If there were only two
members of the "Rustic Club" present, the birds and chipmunks and other
wood-creatures supplied every lack. Sometimes when they found themselves
longing to "pick up and move back among folks," they played that the
farm was a city.
"'My mind to me a kingdom is,'" quoted Frank, optimistically; "and I
think if we all put our minds to it, we can manage to people this spot
on the map very sociably."
Their city had a model government, and ideal regulations for community
health and enjoyment. It had also an enterprising newspaper of which
Frank was editor.
Frank was the leader in all of the fun. She was the commanding general
in that famous "Indian fight" when, with Mary and Mother, she held the
fort against the attack of two dreadful, make-believe savages and a dog.
It was due to her strategy that the dog was brought over to their side
by an enticing sparerib and the day won. Frank, too, was the captain of
their good ship _Enterprise_.
"If we do live inland, we don't have to _think inland_, Mary," she said.
"What's the use of sitting here in Wisconsin and sighing because we've
never seen the ocean. Let's take this hen-coop and go a-sailing. Who
knows what magic shores we'll touch beyond our Sea of Fancy!"
A plank was put across the pointed top of the hen-coop, and the children
stood at opposite ends steering, slowly when the sea was calm and
more energetically when a storm was brewing. The hens clucked and the
chickens ran about in a panic, but the captain calmly charted the waters
and laid down rules of navigation.
Perhaps, though, the best times of all were those that Frank spent in
her retreat at the top of a black oak tree, where she could sit weaving
stories of bright romance to her heart's content. On the tree she nailed
a sign with this painted warning: "The Eagle's Nest. Beware!" to secure
her against intruders. Here she wrote a wonderful novel of adventure,
some four hundred pages long.
But this eagle found that the wings of her imagination could not make
her entirely free and happy. She had to return from the heights and the
high adventures of her favorite heroes to the dull routine of farm life.
She was not even allowed to ride, as Oliver was.
"Well, if I can't be trusted to manage a horse, I'll see what can be
done with a cow and a saddle. I simply must ride _something_," Frank
declared, with a determined toss of her head.
It took not only determination, but also grim endurance and a sense of
fun to help her through this novel experiment, which certainly had in it
more excitement than pleasure. However, when her father saw her ride by
on her long-horned steed, he said with a laugh:
"You have fairly earned a better mount, Frank. And I suppose there is
really no more risk of your breaking your neck with a horse."
That night Frank wrote in her journal:
"Hurrah! rejoice! A new era has this moment been ushered in. Rode a
horse through the corn--the acme of my hopes realized."
In the saddle, with the keen breath of a brisk morning in her face, she
felt almost free--almost a part of the larger life for which she longed.
"I think I'm fonder of anything out of my sphere than anything in it,"
she said to her mother, whose understanding and sympathy never failed
her.
Perhaps she loved especially to pore over a book of astronomy and try to
puzzle out the starry paths on the vast prairie of the heavens, because
it carried her up and away from her every-day world. Sometimes, however,
she was brought back to earth with a rude bump.
"When I had to get dinner one Sunday, I fairly cried," she said. "To
come back to frying onions, when I've been among the rings of Saturn, is
terrible."
She didn't at all know what it was for which she longed. Only she knew
that she didn't want to grow up--to twist up her free curls with spiky
hair-pins and to wear long skirts which seemed to make it plain that a
weary round of shut-in tasks was all her lot and that the happy days of
roaming woods and fields were over.
Through all the girlhood days at "Forest Home" Frank longed for the
chance to go to a real school as much as she longed to be free. Oliver
went to the Janesville Academy, and later to Beloit College, but she
could get only fleeting glimpses of his more satisfying life through
the books he brought home and his talks of lectures and professors. She
remembered those far-off days at Oberlin as a golden time indeed. There
even a girl might have the chance to learn the things that would set her
mind and soul free.
It was a great day for Frances and Mary Willard when Mr. Hodge, a
Yale man who was, like her father, exiled to a life in a new country,
decided to open a school for the children of the neighboring farms. On
the never-to-be-forgotten first day the girls got up long before light,
put their tin pails of dinner and their satchels of books with their
coats, hoods, and mufflers, and then stood watching the clock, whose
provokingly measured ticks seemed entirely indifferent to the eager
beating of their hearts. At last the hired man yoked the oxen to the
long "bob-sled," and Oliver drove them over a new white road to the new
school. The doors were not yet open.
"I told you it was much too early," said Oliver. "The idea of being so
crazy over the opening of a little two-by-four school like this!"
"It does look like a sort of big ground-nut," said Frank, with a laugh,
"but it's ours to crack. Besides, we have a Yale graduate to teach us,
and Beloit can't beat that!"
"Let's go over to Mr. Hodge's for the key, and make the fire for him,"
suggested Mary.
There was an unusually long entry in Frank's diary that night:
At last Professor Hodge appeared, in his long-tailed blue
coat with brass buttons, carrying an armful of school-books and
a dinner-bell in his hand. He stood on the steps and rang the
bell, long, loud, and merrily. My heart bounded, and I said
inside of it, so that nobody heard: "At last we are going to
school all by ourselves, Mary and I, and we are going to have
advantages like other folks, just as Mother said we should." O!
goody-goody-goody! I feel satisfied with the world, myself, and
the rest of mankind.
This enthusiasm for school and study did not wane as the days went
by. "I want to know everything--_everything_," Frank would declare
vehemently. "It is only _knowing_ that can make one free."
The time came when she was to go away to college. Wistfully she went
about saying good-by to all the pleasant haunts about "Forest Home." For
a long time she sat on her old perch in the "Eagle's nest," looking off
towards the river and the hills.
"I think that as I know more, I live more," said Frank to her mother
that night. "I am alive to so many things now that I never thought of
six months ago; and everything is dearer--is more a part of myself."
[Illustration: The Statue of Miss Willard in the Capitol of Washington]
The North-West Female College, at Evanston, Illinois, was Frank's
alma mater. Here her love of learning made her a leader in all her
classes; and her originality, daring, and personal charm made her
a leader in the social life of the students. She was editor of the
college paper, and first fun-maker of a lively clan whose chief delight
it was to shock some of their meek classmates out of their unthinking
"goody-goodness." She was known, for instance, to have climbed into
the steeple and to have remained on her giddy perch during an entire
recitation period in the higher mathematics.
In her days of teaching, Frank was the same alert, free, eager-minded,
fun-loving girl. First in a country school near Chicago, and afterward
in a seminary in Pittsburg, she was a successful teacher because she
never ceased to be a learner.
"Frank, you have the _hungriest_ soul I ever saw in a human being. It
will never be satisfied!" said one of her friends.
"I shall never be satisfied until I have entered every open door, and I
shall not go in alone," said Frank.
In all of her pursuit of knowledge and culture she was intensely
social. She was always learning with others and for others. A bit from
her diary in 1866 reveals the spirit in which she worked:
I read a good deal and learn ever so many new things every
day. I get so hungry to know things. I'll teach these girls
as well as possible.... Girls, girls, girls! Questions upon
questions. Dear me, it is no small undertaking to be elder
sister to the whole 180 of them. They treat me beautifully, and
I think I reciprocate.
"Miss Willard seems to see us not as we are, but as we hope we are
becoming," one of her girls said. "And so we simply _have_ to do what
she believes we can do."
No one was a stranger or indifferent to her. When her clear blue eyes
looked into the eyes of another, they always saw a friend.
Through these early years of teaching Frances Willard was learning not
only from constant study and work with others, but also from sorrow. Her
sister Mary was taken from her. The story of what her gentle life and
loving comradeship meant to Frank is told in the first and best of Miss
Willard's books, "Nineteen Beautiful Years," which gives many delightful
glimpses of their childhood on the Wisconsin farm and the school-girl
years together. Soon after Mary's death "Forest Home" was sold and the
family separated. Frank wrote in her journal at this time:
I am to lose sight of the old familiar landmarks; old things
are passing from me, whose love is for old things. I am pushing
out all by myself into the wide, wide sea.
The writing of the story of Mary's life, together with essays and
articles of general interest for the papers and magazines, "took the
harm out of life for a while." In all her writing, as in her teaching
and later in her public speaking, her instinctive faith in people was
the secret of her power and influence as a leader.
"For myself, I liked the world, believed it friendly, and could see no
reason why I might not confide in it," she said.
When another sorrow, the loss of her father, threatened to darken her
life for a time, a friend came to the rescue and "opened a new door" for
her--the door of travel and study abroad. They lived for two and a half
years in Europe, and made a journey to Syria and Egypt. During much of
this time Miss Willard spent nine hours a day in study. She longed to
make her own the impressions of beauty and the haunting charm of the
past.
"I must really enter into the life of each place," she said, "if it is
only for a few weeks or months. I want to feel that I have a right to
the landscape--that I'm not just an intruding tourist, caring only for
random sight-seeing."
But Miss Willard brought back much more than a general culture gained
through a study of art, history, and literature, and a contact with
civilization. She gained, above all, a vital interest in conditions of
life, particularly those that concern women and their opportunities for
education, self-expression, and service. The Frances E. Willard that the
world knows, the organizer and leader in social reform, was born at this
time. On her thirtieth birthday she wrote:
I can _do_ so much more when I go home. I shall have a hold
on life, and a fitness for it so much more assured. Perhaps--who
knows?--there may be noble, wide-reaching work for me in the
years ahead.
It seemed to Miss Willard, when she returned to her own country, that
there was, after all, no land like America, and no spot anywhere so
truly satisfying as Rest Cottage in Evanston, where her mother awaited
her home-coming. A signal honor awaited her as well. She was called to
be president of her alma mater; and when the college became a part of
the North-Western University, she remained as Dean of Women.