From collection Frances Willard Journal Transcripts
uncomplaining woman-going straight on& saying nothing more than playfully "I'se Cos 'ittle sumpter coz." I never saw such a combination of a heroine and a baby. What a splendid amalgam it makes! They had a wretched car ride to Chicago-everything so crowded& found the city another pandemonium-750 thousand went to the World's Fair in one day! What a "hustling"!
[I have skipped in transcribing to the "cash acct section at end of diary.]
We first met Oct. 28, 1891.
Something that Isabel said to me when we first met
"I used to stand on the terrace watching the birds and saying to myself "each has its mate & is not lonely-the flowers are comrades to each cther-I only am alone." And she lived there that way seven years & did the work of God among her tenants & often in the evening walked miles alone-in thought. She had the saddest, sweetest face I ever saw but I rejoice to think my coming has brightened it. She had always a cheery nature in spite of all her griefs.
Oct.
Cossie had told the Master of Balliol (Dr Jowett) of me & she says he had expressed a wish to see me. How I wish I had followed it up-but I thought he would be there any time-& he is gone. Robert Smith said last year this time that he would take me to see Tennyson whose beautiful "Aldworth" was near by,& I counted greatly on it but two weeks after the Laureate was gone-my lassitude had lost the chance.-I missed James Russell Lowell too. When invited to see him, because I would stay at temperance jubilee 1886-wasn't it? Dr Benj. Rush's anniversary of his famous doc that set off Lyman Beecher that set off the nation. Dr.
Jowett said to Hannah Smith when her daughter was married in Balliol College, that after his life long experience of young men he thought the vast majority were good in their aspirations not only, but their purpose.
[written same page, different ink, so hard to tell when this was written ]
I have felt the loss of church& social religious meetings& our warm hearted temperance gatherings, more than I can say. How true it is that heart warms heart in holy talk along the heavenly way! But I am thankful to have known so much of "the assembly of the faithful" all along the journey now full spent.
