Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911
Chapter One
Courtship and Marriage
One day during the late summer of 1853 in Evansville, Indiana, a small
but growing town in the Southwestern part of the State—a young girl of
fifteen, suffering from some slight affection of the eyes, had been
confined by the physician's orders to a darkened room.
Happening at the moment to peep through a narrow crack of the almost
closed window-shutters she saw a young man passing by. As she had
lived all her life in that small town and was familiar with almost
every face in it, she knew at once that he was a stranger.
That was sixty-one years ago; but, as clearly as if it were yesterday,
she can still see him as he looked that day—his magnificent figure,
his head erect, his broad shoulders well thrown back—walking as if the
whole world belonged to him.
On the sixth of the following February, 1854, she was invited to take
supper with the family of Dr. J. G. Hatchitt, a young physician
living in the block beyond her father's residence. To her surpris ... read full excerpt from Some Memories of a Long Life, 1854-1911: ebook
