Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/305

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
272
Part Taken by Women in American History


time since persons have wished that her example might have been followed by her successors. She was very much interested in the missionary cause, and there is in Washington the Lucy Webb Hayes Home for Deaconesses and retired missionaries, which was named in her honor. A life-sized portrait of Mrs. Hayes by Huntington, was placed in the White House by the Temperance Women of this country. No passing of a Mistress of the White House was more sincerely regretted than was that of Mrs. Hayes, and no one has been more sincerely missed since her untimely death at Fremont, Ohio, in 1889.

LUCRETIA RUDOLPH GARFIELD.

Lucretia Rudolph Garfield was the daughter of Zebulon Rudolph, a farmer who resided near Garrettsville, Ohio. He was one of the founders of Hiram College. Her mother was

the daughter of Elijah Mason of Lebanon, Connecticut, a descendant of General Nathaniel Greene. She first met her future husband, James A. Garfield, at the Geauga Seminary. They attended this school together until young Garfield entered Hiram College, of which institution he was a graduate. Not long after he entered the college he was called upon to take the place of one of the teachers because of illness. Into his classroom came his school-girl friend, Lucretia Rudolph, whom he considered one of his brightest pupils. She was especially apt in Latin and was so well instructed by Mr. Garfield that twenty years after she prepared her boy in Latin to enter college. After she graduated from Hiram College, she also became a teacher. When Mr. Garfield went to Williams College to finish his education she went to Cleveland to teach in one of the public schools. By that time they were lovers and both studied very hard, believing that there was a great future before James A. Garfield.