Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/178

148 a visit to the sister who was teaching school at Canton, he had met a schoolgirl named Ida Saxton, the daughter of James A. Saxton, a rich banker of the town. The two had become friends, and when the young lawyer started to carve his way to fortune, this friendship continued until the two were quite intimate.

Miss Saxton had been educated at a seminary in Media, Pennsylvania, and after this she went to Europe for a number of months. But a correspondence was kept up between the pair, so it is said, and when she returned, McKinley was often seen escorting her to church or Sunday School. At that time she taught in a Presbyterian Sunday School, while he was connected with a Methodist Sunday School.

On returning from abroad, Miss Saxton had entered her father's banking house as cashier, for her parents believed in teaching her how to support herself. She was a beautiful young woman, and many remember her as a belle of that period. The family was cultured as well as rich, her grandfather having been for years the editor of the Repository, a paper still