Woman of the Century/Lucretia Rudolph Garfield

GARFIELD, Mrs. Lucretia Rudolph, wife of James A Garfield, twentieth President of the United States, born in Hiram, Portage county, Ohio, 19th April. 1832. She was the daughter of Zebulon Rudolph, a farmer. She received a classical education in Hiram, in a school in which her future husband was a teacher. She became the wife of James A. Garfield, nth November, 1858, in Hiram, Ohio, where he was president of the college. Their family consisted of several children, LUCRETIA RUDOLPH GARFIELD. one of whom, a daughter, died in infancy. The living children are four suns and one daughter. Her husband, after their marriage, was both college professor and a Campbellite preacher, often officiating in the churches of the sect of Disciples. His career is a matter of familiarity. When he was elected to the Presidency, Mrs. Garfield's public career began. Her occupancy of the White House was suddenly ended by the murder of her husband. During her reign in Washington she showed a great deal of force of character. She was in the most difficult position that any woman can hold in the United States, and she acquitted herself with tact and dignity. She was averse to publicity, discreet, retiring and reticent. The duties of her Cation broke her health, and she was taken to ng Branch to recover strength. While she was there. President Garfield, just starting from Washington to join her, was shot Her devotion to him during the agonizing weeks that ended in his death, is historical. After his death Mrs. Garfield received a large amount of money presented to her by citizens of the country, and she made her home in Cleveland, Ohio. She visited Europe and lived for a time in Bournemouth, England. Returning to the United States, she settled in the Garfield homestead in Mentor, Ohio. Mrs. Garfield is passing her days in quiet retirement, doing good work for those about her in the unostentatious manner that distinguished her when she held the position of mistress of the White House. One of her philanthropic deeds was the donation of $10,000 to a university in Kansas, which took the name of her martyred husband. Her life has throughout been an illustration of American womanhood, wife-hood and motherhood of the loftiest character.