Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/118

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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��Chairman of the Committee on the Asylum for the Insane, lnpursuanceof the duties appertainingthereto he form- ed a strong friendship for Dr. Bancroft, the surgeon in charge of the hospital, and as a result of their consultation and labor there were brought about numerous improvements, one being the heating apparatus, by which the comfort of inmates was greatly in- creased.

Dr. Parker is a member of the First. Congregational Church of Farmington, and being of a generous disposition, has probably given more, according to his means, than any other citizen toward the support of the religious society with which he is connected. His sensitiveness to suffering has pre- vented him from acquiring so large a golden umbrella for die rainy day of old age, as would be possessed by most men of his long and successful practice ; but the needy have never been turned hungry from his door nor suffered for hick of his care. Of faults, he has like other men his share ; but his generous figure holds a gener- ous heart, and he is his own severest judge.

With regard to his domestic life, he married, in 1833, Clara Cham- berlain, of Lebanon, Me. She was his devoted wife for more than forty- three years, and being endowed with the medical instinct to a remarkable degree, she so profited by her position, as the wife of a busy practitioner that she was, in the ripeness of her life, in only a less demand among the sick than was her husband, and the stout Morgan pony she always drove was recognized by every m;m, woman, and child, for miles around. Of a mien calm, controlled, and strong, her heart was thoroughly the maternal heart, and on her death, Nov. 7, 1876, she was mourned by a great concourse of people who had cause to hold her in much more than simple neighborly esteem. She was the mother of three children, — a daughter, who died in her first year, and two sons, both of whom

��arrived at the age of manhood, and chose the profession of their father. The elder son died of pneumonia at La Harpe, 111., where he had gone for his health, before beginning practice. He left a widow, formerly Miss Mary Rollins, of the well-known family of that name in Strafford county.

The younger son, a man of unusual skill and success in the practice of his profession, (Yet] Dec. 31, 1866, from disease contracted by service in the civil war. leaving only a widow. His father, left wholly alone save for brothers and sisters settled for the greater part at a distance (one brother, also a physician, residing in Lebanon, Me.), married a cousin of his late wife, Mrs. Lucy Wentworth Fernald, June 16, 1S78. Mrs. Parker unites, as did her predecessor, with her hus- band in performing many acts of kindness, and a scanty larder is very often well stocked by their kindly hinds, while in seasons of good cheer they rememl er especially those who exist, but hardly live, and to whom the holidays would be fast-days were it not for the thought and consideration felt for their circumstances by these kindly hearts. From these who owe grati- tude for care of the body in hunger and colli as well as sickness, and for regard toward their sensitivenesstQthose less needy, but not less thankful for restored health and consequent courage, the wish of our foreign friends — '"May your shadow never be less !" — is often breathed for the hearty "old Doctor," and that advancing years may softly crown his old age with rest and com- fort, and with die continued com- panionship of his excellent wife, is the earnest desire of his friends.

The "old school" country doctors are rapidly passing away, and it is well that memories of their hardships, their toils and their efforts to give us and ours life and health, should cluster about them as ivy gently shields the venerable abbeys of our mother country, and that the autumn of their lives should be a golden Indian summer.

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