12 May 1919
Rev. Jesse Halsey at Seventh Presbyterian Church, Walnut
Hills, last night preached on “The Mother of the Neighborhood.”
“In the days before trained nurses she was the one sent for
in time of illness and she was the presiding genius at the advent of each new
life in the community,” said Rev. Mr. Halsey. “Her hands closed the eyes of the
dead. Her memory is redolent with sweetness—that pervasive fragrance of
personality, indescribably, yet real—that lingers as the perfume of rosemary
laid within the pages of a treasured volume.
“She lived in a house of a story and a half, and in the
attic hung herbs and roots, harvested in season, to meet the needs of the sick
of the neighborhood—wormwood for ‘spring fever,’ hopes for bruises and flaxseed
for poultices.
“She had suffered and knew sympathy. Three of her boys had
gone to sea never to return, and every boy in the neighborhood found a mother
in her. Her income was not large, but she always had enough to keep a fellow
out of a scrape, when, for instance, he might break a window pane with a
misdirected snowball.
“Her house was near the school and a hundred children
crossed the yard daily, sometimes trespassing on her garden, but they were
never refused the short-cut route. To most of them the inexhaustible cookie jar
was always open.
“I make no apology for presenting her here in company with
Mary of Bethany, for of both alike it may be said, ‘She has done what she could
. . .’”
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