CHAPTER X

Married Life

I was married on December 8, 1878, to William Rolvin Bradford, of Kenosha. The wedding was a very simple affair in the humble home of my parents, with only relatives present and with our friend and pastor Henry M. Simmons officiating. Mr. Bradford was a widower with a seven-year-old son, Chester T. Bradford,1 whose mother, Persis Torrey Bradford, had died several years before of tuberculosis in Colorado Springs where she had been taken from Kenosha in the hopes of her recovery. After her death Mr. Bradford had taken up his residence at the Kenosha Water Cure, which also served Kenosha as a hotel, while his three-year-old boy received a mother's care from a cousin of his mother, Miss Grace Torrey Howe, at the home of her brother, Col. James H. Howe at Kenosha. These were niece and nephew of Senator Timothy O. Howe. James H. Howe won his title in the Civil War where he was in command after 1862 of the Thirty-second Regiment of Wisconsin Infantry.2

Mr. Bradford took me on a wedding trip to Maine, his native state, to see his relatives and I thus began my observations of New England life. At Peak's Islands in Casco Bay, I had my first seashore experience, although winter was a rather unfavorable time for it. It was a favorite joke of my husband's to tell how my first act at the seashore was to go as near as possible to the water's edge, dip my finger in an advancing ripple, taste the water, and exclaim "Yes, it is salty!" Next, the strange objects on the beach absorbed my interest. Our kind hostess, who had been watching these performances, was greatly puzzled--no attention to the view! No gasping exclamation at the vast expanse of water! What manner of person was this? At the first opportunity my husband was questioned. When she was told that I had lived all my life near a body of water apparently as large as the ocean, she was incredulous. Several times during the evening, when lapses in the conversation occurred, her rumination would be heard, "And so Lake Michigan is so broad that you can't see across it! Well never!"--giving evidence of the difficulty being experienced in assimilating this new bit of information.

In my husband's native town, Turner, Androscoggin County, I met Bradfords at every turn, and got all tangled up trying to keep relationships clear; the problem being more complicated by the fact that my husband was a Bradford by two lines of descent, that of this father, Hartson Bradford, and that of his mother, Asenath Bradford, merging away back in their common great grandfather who was removed in the same degree from the renowned Pilgrim ancestor, Governor William of Plymouth colony.

To many of these numerous relatives, the western girl was a curiosity. In the first place, her speech was peculiar, she "ground out" her "r's" and gave certain vowels a quality that made her pronunciation quite different from that heard there. "Why do say box!" (using western pronunciation "books") exclaimed an irritated, critical old uncle.

"How do you say it?" she questioned, and the reply was, of course, what may be spelled "bawks."

An amusing story related for her benefit on a certain family occasion illustrates what were considered the chief orthoepic sins in western speech.

It was about an Illinois girl who came East to teach in a Maine district school. In a spelling down exercise this western school ma'am had given out the word "shop." She naturally gave the "o" the characteristic western quality, like that of "a" in "what." The boy, moved with the desire to keep his place in the contest, showed true Yankee caution by saying to the teacher, "If you mean 'shop' [pronouncing it "shawp"] it is s-h-o-p; but if you mean 'shop'[pronouncing it "shahp"] it is s-h-a-r-p," using of course the New England vowelized "r."

She recalls a church social where she became aware after several repetitions of the occurrence, that, when she began talking, all other conservation stopped, greatly to her embarrassment. Her husband's explanation was that people liked to hear her queer pronunciation. Queer, was it? Had she been inclined to retaliate, she might have mentioned the leaving off of "g" in the suffix "ing," those all about her, most of them refined, educated people, saying "readin'," "sewin'," "stockin'," or she might have commented on the phrase "riz bread," that article prepared especially for company to the place of common, everyday biscuit--a queer reversal, she taught, of western custom.

Her critical thoughts about speech were not then, however, given other than private expression. But in this and subsequent visits there developed an interest in the identifying characteristics of Maine speech (and it has some peculiarities different from other New England variations), and a mild aversion to the attempted imitations of these,especially the "r," by Westerners, whose speech ensemble always betrays them and reveals the fact that they were not "to the manor born."

Now, dropping the third person, and dismissing other digression about New England characteristics that come to mind, my story goes back to Kenosha.

Mr. Bradford was a member of a firm at Kenosha that was engaged in the manufacture of fanning mills. The factory occupied a part of the site of the present great Simmon's bed factory and was a sort of ancestral form from which by adaption to changing demands, the latter has evolved, like the horse from its diminutive ancestor of a remote geological age.

I find information about this position in that firm in a printed circular letter, evidently designed for agents, and which, besides this information, is interesting since it deals with a business situation--a time of depression--similar to the one that we are going through in 1930-31. The letter reads:

Office of Kenosha Fanning Mill Company

Dear Sir:

On account of the failure of the wheat crop in a large of the northwest in 1878, and the low prices of farm products that have prevailed, we have carried over a very large amount of notes that we had expected to realize on this Fall. We now wish judicious measures taken to secure the payment of as many as possible of these claims in the Fall of 1879.

Then follow suggestions in regard to what agents may do, and closes with:

Your active interest in these matters is earnestly solicited.

Yours respectfully,
Kenosha Fanning Mill Company
Zalmon G. Simmons,
James H. Howe,
Joseph H. Carleton,
Wm. R. Bradford,
Co-partners.

Colonel Carleton acted as the traveling agent and Mr. Bradfordas secretary and office manager, Simmons and Howebeing the moneyed partners.

We lived at Kenosha at the Pennoyer Water Cure, having rooms in a smaller building, known as the "Cottage," where Dr. N. A. Pennoyer and his family resided, and some others who enjoyed hotel privileges at this popular place. Our second floor windows looked out upon the harbor and beautiful Lake Michigan with its ever changing color, varying moods, and different craft, those interesting ones of the sailing sort being still frequently seen, although being fast crowded off the scene by steamboats.

After my busy youth, I found hotel life rather irksome, and soon tired of porch and parlor gossip, and of listening to the detailed account of the ailments of a semi-invalid company who ever patients in the adjacent "cure" My husband, realizing, this, had the good sense to have me on with him to his office certain mornings, where he found work for me to do of a clerical sort, introducing me thus to business practices, an experience that later proved very advantageous.

Besides this, I took lessons in painting of a man of high artistic talent. Lessons from a copyist in landscapes taken a few years before had introduced me to the use of colors, and had produced some results that seemed, to my husband, to indicate ability in that line. My new teacher taught me to see and portray real, objects, and still life. This fascinating occupation was a delight to me, and left permanent effects in heightened appreciation of, and interest in, this form of art. It was a distinct contribution to my education.

The busy, carefree, happy summer soon passed. In the fall it was observed that Mr. Bradford was not well. his business cares seemed to oppress and worry him; a hacking cough that had for some time greatly disturbed my experienced mother was more in evidence. To any remark for her about it, the reply always was the there was nothing to be disturbed about, his family had never had any lung trouble. It was finally decided that a vacation was needed, and we left Kenosha for the East, he confidently assuring friends that rest in the quiet old home neighborhood near his beloved brother and other relatives would soon restore his health. We arrived in Maine in November. The stage ride from Auburn to Turner was taken in the face of the first hard snowstorm of the season. At the home of his favorite aunt, a sister of his mother, he was stricken with something called by the country doctor congestion of the lungs. His illness continued through the winter, but he seemed to believe and made others that it was only the effects of the bad cold from which he was suffering.

Here again the use of the third personal pronoun seems more appropriate; for as events are viewed down the long retrospect of a half century, the young woman taking part in them seems someone other than the person now telling about them.

When spring came, her husband was not able to return to Kenosha, but would be, he was sure, when the warm weather came. It was, however, decided to be best for her to return, and the journey to Kenosha was made alone in early April. A House was rented close to that of her own people and this was furnished and prepared for the expected return of her husband. The succeeding weeks of waiting were characterized by alternating waves of hope and disappointment, as frequent letters brought favorable or unfavorable news. He had not arrived when on June 24, 1880, his son was born in the home prepared with so much hope. He was named William.

Then one September day, Colonel Carleton came to tell her that she must go to Maine. For the first time she realized that her husband had tuberculosis and could never return. It seems strange that she could have been so influenced by her husband's repeated assertion that he could not have that disease it was not in his blood; no member of his family had ever died of it. Her mother left for awhile the invalid father, and went with the daughter and the ten-week-old baby on the long journey. Shut in by a severe Maine winter, the months went by, another winter more trying that the former for now was gone. Her mother needed by the sufferer at home at Kenosha felt obliged to leave Maine of early holiday time. A consequent sense of responsibility settled heavily upon the young wife and mother.

During that winter, 1880-81, an incident of general interest occurred that seems worth recording. One day as she sat by his bedside, her husband handed her a newspaper he had been reading and pointed significantly and without comment to a paragraph he had just noticed. It conveyed the astounding information that consumption was believed by scientists to be a germ disease, transmissible, but not inherited; and told of the laboratory study then being carried on by Koch.3 Had this fact been known a few years before, and had been laid then as now on the curableness of this dread disease, how different might have been their course of procedure! But this is idle conjecture now.

On March 20, 1881, William Rolvin Bradford died. For the first time, she had looked upon death face to face. The old pastor of the Universalist Church, wherein W. R. Bradford had been reared, conducted at the aunt's home the simple funeral services, participated in by members of the Nazinscott Lodge of Masons from the nearby village, from which lodge her husband had never transferred his membership. The burial was at Kenosha, where the Rev. Henry M. Simmons, his beloved friend and former pastor, performed burial rites. The young wife was not present, the condition of the Maine country roads at that season making the long ride to Auburn and to the railroad too difficult to be undertaken. The first of April found her back in Kenosha, with her ten-month-old son. The deserted, long-vacant house was again occupied.

It is Emerson who said that every man's task is his life-preserver. Her task was teaching, and she donned the "life preserver" as soon as possible, and managed to keep her head above the troubled waters of life.

In the fall of 1882, the resignation of Dora Dodge caused a vacancy in the lower department of the second ward, north-side school, of which C. A. Anderson was principal and teacher of the upper grades. In the three grades downstairs there were more than sixty children, but the work was interesting. Her boy was cared for during the day by her mother and sisters in the old home. The next year she was elected to fill a mid-year vacancy in the first ward grammar school where Miss Etta Hannahs was principal--and in the fall of 1884 she went back in the high school in the same old place.

From now on, the story is that of her long, hard climb up the hill of professional advancement, year after year, without cessation for a period of thirty-seven years. The story of that climb will be told in succeeding chapters.

1 Chester T. Bradford has for many years been traffic manager of the International Harvester Company, at Chicago, which position be reached by the process of slow promotion from his initial opportunity. He resides at Evanston, Illinois.

2 Sketch in John R. Berryman, History of the Bench and Bar of Wisconsin (Chicago, 1898). 11, 7-6.

3 The discovery of the bacilli was made known to the world in 1882.