Testament, with which she was familiar from Matthew to Revelation. But she was not by any means an ignorant woman. Her husband had adopted the habit of reading aloud to her in their early married life. This habit he kept up as long as she lived. Of evenings, when the day's work was done and the fires were lighted on the hearth in the winter, or of Sundays and leisure hours of summer, he would read the current news of the day—polities, congressional proceedings, and general news, as well as books of travel, historical works, novels and poetry. She listened with appreciation and interest and forgot nothing of what she heard. She liked best historical subjects and books of travel and historical novels. Her husband shared with her also his letter correspondence, which was extensive, reading to her the letters sent as well as those received.
She taught her children, first, virtue, next honesty. No lessons in acquisitiveness were ever taught by either parent. She was a member of the Christian Church, which she considered nearest the Savior's lessons of any, but she was not a bigot and attended the services of other churches and made their ministers welcome at her house, from the Archbishop of the Church of Rome to the humble followers of John Wesley. Archbishop Blanchet once celebrated high mass in her house, surrounded by all our Catholic neighbors, and I think she felt it a great honor.
Mrs. Applegate was the mother of thirteen children, nine of whom have descendants. At the present time, March, 1902, five of her children are yet living, forty-four grand-children, forty-five great-grand-children, and two great-great-grand-children, making a total of ninety-one descendants. She died on the first day of June, 1881, in the little home on the side of Mount Yoncalla where her last years were spent.
