Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/42

Rh kerchief, laid in folds around her neck, was the one article of personal adornment to which she clung. Its simplicity was perhaps its special charm, so completely did it harmonize with the purity and sincerity of the wearer.

Mrs. Foster was noted far and near for her good housekeeping. She had had almost no experience in this department before her marriage, but (as she confided to me a short time before her death) she was determined to disprove the assertion that a "strong-minded woman" would, of course, neglect her house and family. As a poor farmer's wife she had a hard task, but she accomplished it success- fully, though her health was often far from robust. From kitchen to platform was perhaps not an easy transition, yet it was one which she often made with little apparent difficulty.

The five years of Mrs. Foster's life from 1876 to 1881 were saddened by the illness of her husband, which was attended with intense suffering and which terminated fatally. But throughout this time of trial and for the succeeding five years preceding her own death. January 14, 1887, her brave and cheerful spirit triumphed over her frail body, and she lived on the serene heights, happy in the consciousness of a life well spent and ready for that immortal existence which she was convinced would bring her renewed strength and further opportunity to work toward the ultimate good which to her meant God.

A sketch of Mrs. Foster would be incomplete without a word upon the character of her husband, which cannot be better said than by his lifelong friend, Parker Pillsbury, in his "Acts of the Anti-slavery Apostles":—

" Distinguished abolitionists were often called men with one idea. Anti-slavery, in its immeasurable importance to all the interests of the country, material, mental, moral, and social, as well as religious and political, was one idea far too great for ordinary minds, even without any other. But the sturdy symmetry and consistency of Mr. Foster's character were as wonderful as were his vigor and power in any one direction. Earliest and bravest among the temperance reformers, when even that cause was almost as odious as anti-slavery became afterward; a radical advocate of peace from the standpoint of the Sermon on the Mount, 'Resist not evil,' seconded by the apostolic injunction, 'Avenge not yourselves'; a champion in the woman suffrage enterprise from its inception; an intelligent, earnest advocate of the rights of labor and deeply interested in all the moral, social, and philanthropic associations of the city and neighborhood where he lived — he left behind him a record and a memory to grow brighter as the years sweep on. &hellip; The beauty and harmony of his home were unsurpassed. It was sacred to peace and love. Its unostentatious but elegant and generous hospitality was the admiration of all who ever enjoyed it."

James Russell Lowell, in a rh}'med letter descriptive of the principal figures in the anti-slavery bazaar held in Boston in 1846, pays a charming tribute to Mrs. Foster:—

URA CHASE PARTINGTON, the first woman to hold the office of Grand Worthy Patriarch of the Grand Division of Maine, Sons of Temperance, is a native of the State of Maine. She was born in Cornville, Somerset County, August 11, 1831, daughter of Reuben Moore and Lydia Hewitt (Woodcock) Smiley. Her father was born in Sidney, Me., December 10, 1803. He died in Gardiner, Me., September 7, 1882. Seven of his ancestral kin were minute-men of the Revolution. His father, William Smiley, born in Sidney, November 30, 1757, was the son of Hugh and Marcy (Park) Smylie, who were married October 23, 1745. Marcy was the daughter of