All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 66

With much love for you, and your stories,

Your admirer,

FRANCES A. M. TERRY.

June eleventh, 1911.

DEVORE, CALIFORNIA, June 26th, 1912.

MY DEAR LADY:

Because I must, I am taking this liberty of writing you; and because I am a woman of sixty, I am not stopping to choose words, nor to apologize.

I have been reading of some strange supernatural experiences of yours.

I, too, have been favored in that way, also with the gift of prophecy--involuntarily exercised.

The story of the terrific impact of the great hand on the wooden shutter in your home in Galveston, was almost exactly paralleled in my experience.

If your acquaintance with other people has brought you in contact with many who have similar stories to tell, of course you will not be especially interested in mine, but judging from my own life-long investigations, these manifestations are comparatively rare.

Last year before an aviation meet fifty miles away in which a considerable number of entries were made, I announced the name of one who was to fall to his death. I had never seen him, heard no more of him than of any one of the others, but knew he was to die. I even wrote his mother of whom I knew nothing whatever, begging her not to consent to his flight. And at the moment of his fall to death, I fell with him, and told all the particulars to my family, long before the news came over the wire--but I am not trying to convince any one--against his will.

Yours,

EMMA J. C. DAVIS.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Kendal wig, a very fine tea cake raised with yeast. It is baked and allowed to cool, then cut apart, toasted and b.u.t.tered.

[2] Judging Chartists by their own words we should not now think they merited exile, hard labor, and life imprisonment. I do not suppose I ever understood their claims, but I have looked up their record and I find they were fighting for five not very wicked points: first, universal suffrage, excluding women, which was the great mistake of Chartism; second, the division of England into equal electoral districts; third, votes by ballot; fourth, annual Parliaments and no property qualifications for members; fifth, payments to every member for his legislative services. For advocating these demands, I saw in 1843, at Liverpool Railway Station, a long row of these Chartists chained together on their way to a convict s.h.i.+p which was to carry them to Botany Bay, or Norfolk Island.

[3] A Serape Saltillero, is an exceedingly fine blanket in which is interwoven gold or silver threads. It is so soft and fine that it can be carried in the coat pocket. It has an aperture in the centre which goes over the head. Made only in Saltillero, Mexico.

[4] An English gentleman who lost his reason on spiritual matters. He lived alone, no one knew just how; but he always came to us for Christmas breakfast.

[5] Blue Williams, Confederate paper money.

[6] Beowulf, A.D. 600.

[7] Mr. Cochran's opinion has been overwhelmingly refuted by the vast number of Women's Clubs scattered all over the civilized and semi-civilized world; and more especially so by the suffragist movement of the present day. In this effort for their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, the cultured woman and the ignorant woman, the n.o.bly born, and the lowly born, the wealthy woman, clothed in purple, and the poor girl in her clean cotton waist, stand shoulder to shoulder, and plan and work together. Neither are they indifferent to their weak sisters, or afraid of their strong ones. The very clubs for helping the weak, the sick, the poor, and the ignorant, are numberless. Tired mothers are succored by them, deficient and neglected children are their care. The strong ones are demanding clean cities, and healthy food, and are looking after defiled waterways, and the savagely abused forests of the country. Indeed if Mr. Cochran could revisit earth at this day the thing that would amaze him more than all other changes would be the condition of women--their work, their aims, their already vast success, embodying as it does the sure fulfilment of the promise that she should "bruise the serpent's head" which will be done when woman has put down drunkenness, and cleansed the Augean stables of civil government of its vile methods of bribery, graft, and injustice.

[8] It is worth noting that the Manx, a very primitive religious people, restore to a wife as soon as she dies her maiden name.

Death instantly absolves her from her thraldom to her husband.

She regains her individuality, and with it her birth name, which is put both upon her coffin and her tombstone. It is likely that this custom has its source in the words of Christ--Luke, 20:27, Mark, 12:13, and Matthew, 22:23.

[9] To William Libbey, Senior, My First Friend in New York. Mr.

Libbey, Senior, was then dead, but _he knew_.