Page:Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state (Vol. I).djvu/23

Rh Maria then tells how Indians whom the Moravians had converted begged that the mother be permitted to remain in Salem. This they finally yielded, provided the white woman be brought to Gnadenhutten the next morning. So this was done.

Little Maria (she was less than a year old at the time) was carried on the back of an Indian squaw to Sandusky, detained there several weeks and finally, blessed relief, the military authorities were able to obtain the release of the whole party and their safe conduct to Detroit. Johanna Maria was then taken to the headquarters of the Moravian mission, Bethlehem, Penn., where she lived peacefully and it is hoped, happily, ever after.

Since the advent of Johanna Maria, more than three million girl babies, it is estimated, have been born in Ohio. Probably two-thirds of these reached womanhood.

What did they do with themselves? What did they do for—and to—the communities in which they lived?

We know, to begin with, that they acquitted themselves quite ably in discharge of that function which is special to their sex. They gave to Ohio by far the greater portion of its population, past and present. Having brought these children into the world, their next responsibility was to make their homes as adequate as possible to the needs of their families.

So they baked and boiled, scrubbed and scoured, spun and wove, sewed and knit, nursed and nurtured. The normal daily program of the average woman of yesterday is incredible to the woman of today. We cannot realize how such strength and determination could emanate from a woman’s body, one no different from our own. This was, very often, only minor part of the pioneer woman’s achievement. Good mothers must be more than good housewives. The State of Ohio is called the mother of presidents. Actual mothers might well lay claim to the fact that it is so called.

ELIZA GARFIELD, the mother of James A. Garfield, twentieth president of the United States, was born Eliza Ballou, in New Hampshire, of Huguenot descent. She married Abram Garfield, a native of New York state.

With him she emigrated to the then wilderness of the “Western Reserve” in northern Ohio. Little James was born the following year, at Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio and three more children came in regular succession. Then a calamity befell that dwarfed all troubles with which the family had contended. The father died. So Eliza, with four small children, had only herself to depend on in her hand to hand fight with poverty. Somehow, she won out. The children were fed and clothed, gotten to school. James was only three years old when his education started, in a log school house. Eliza must have permitted herself a sigh of relief when she discovered that her little son was an avid reader, hungry for every book on which he could lay his work hardened little hands. For of course he had to work at home and