BLACKWELL FAMILY Antoinette Brown Blackwell MemoirsFeb. 10 - 1894 P. 4. Lucy Stone at Oberlin College At a memorial meeting for Lucy Stone, held in Newark, N.J., Jan 21, Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell said: My first acquaintance with Lucy Stone began nearly fifty years ago. She was seated at one of the long tables of the old Boarding Hall, where the Students of Oberlin College, many of them took their daily meals — young men sitting on one side of the board and young women on the other. Some one had told me that she was studying to be a public speaker, and that she believed so sharingly in the rights of women that she was making herself the center of irreprensible agitation on the subject, therefore she was a rather dangerous person, not exactly one to be avoided, but best treated with a distant and wise discretion. Of course she became the one person whose acquaintance I most desired to make. The first question I addressed to my 2 table neighbor was, "Which is Lucy Stone?" By leaning forward and looking down the line I could see a small, fresh, round-faced girl in a neat calico frock, with a short hair cut round at the neck and hanging just above the smoothest, whitest, turned-down collar - which, by the way, she always washed and ironed herself. Amid the cheerful, quiet babel which rose about us I could also just catch the tones of that voice, which later was to make itself heard round the world. She talked a great deal, and I could feel sure, without hearing what she said, that she was speaking with much earnestness and with very positive convictions. As she was seated near the Superintendent of the Hall, a college graduate and a clergyman, I promptly decided that she talked altogether too much and with an unfitting absoluteness of conviction and of authority for any young girl. She looked about sixteen. Afterwards I learned that she was twenty-six, and recognized 3 that the speech and manner were appropriate enough for the more mature age. If Lucy Stone did not begin her public work in her teens, it was because she recognized the fact that a woman who would do the service most helpful and creditable to her sex must have long and thorough mental discipline, like the men who aim to become teachers and leaders of public thought. When they built the Brooklyn Bridge, which was to span a wide river and last perhaps as long as the earth lasts, they began the foundations away back in the heart of the old Metropolis. So Lucy Stone, planning her life-work in her teens, laid first the stable foundations with long and and slow carefulness, which enabled the superstructure afterwards to become strong, effective and harmonious. I could trace the marked direct influence of those earlier years, study and discipline in many ways if time permitted. In one of our4 textbooks we came upon an expression something like this: "Women are more sunk by marriage than men." "What does that mean, Professor?" asked Lucy in the low voice which was yet vibrant with suppressed indignation. "Why should women be more sunk by marriage than men?" The class numbered more than thirty young people of both sexes. Thirty pairs of ears were pricked up curiously, and our Professor fidgeted in evident discomfort. "Well," he explained, "a married woman loses her maiden name for one thing; her family are not as readily traceable in history as her husband's; the law gives her property into her husband's keeping, and she is little known to the business world. The expression is not a happy one, but of course it doesn't refer to any moral loss or degredation." Then and there began Lucy Stone's first protest against the wife's surrendering her own name, 5 against her surrendering her property at marriage! Then and there seemed to arise the more profound conviction that every important custom is founded upon some moral code, good or bad, and the clearer resolution that, let others do as they would, her duty lay in warring against all inequalities, legal or social. How unfalteringly her beliefs were applied in practice we all know. For the help of others, she retained her maiden name at her marriage, though she knew that for a time, at any rate, it would be shadowed with obloquy; and because she was called simply Lucy Stone, Massachusetts officials have never allowed her to cast her vote for school suffrage. But though she was called only Lucy Stone while her residence was here in New Jersey, legal power in New Jersey was put in force to auction off her property, when she declined to pay assessed taxes unless she could be also legally represented. Her long pathway from that significant class episode through almost of a century has had but very little variableness or shadow of turning. If her6 judgment may sometimes have over-estimated the mint, anise and cummin which she brought to the altar; who shall say that she ever forgot the weightier matters of the law? Oberlin, in those primitive days, was a model of simplicity and self-sacrifice. Lucy Stone, like many of the students, in this, fully accepted their views. I shall never forget, how, when we had made acquaintance and friendship in everyday class garb, she came to me, voice and face full of protest and regret, on first seeing me in a girlish and simple enough Sunday costume approved by my mother and sisters at home. The crown of offence was a little straw hat with flowers. "How can a sensible girl like you wear a flower pot on her head?" she questioned. "Think of the example." I respected her direct sincerity. It was not in the least necessary that we should look through the same glasses. We instinctively learned the lesson which the great Parliament of Religions has lately 7 so broadly emphasized - that fellowship means, not rigid oneness of creeds, but oneness of purpose, of cooperation. There is another suggestive incident. A young girl who had soiled her dress was afraid of its fading if she tried to cleanse it. "Then let it fade," was Lucy Stone's energetic advice. "Soap and water will take over the grease spots!" Soap and water symbolize the purification she was always ready to administer to society at large. If little conventions faded or shrivelled under the wholesome process, so much the more for the conventions. We couldn't afford to lose the vigorous use of wholesome moral soap and water. Conditions for women, familiar enough now, had neither form nor substance then. Each woman had to blaze her own line of progress into an unexplored wilderness. The time had come to move on, but just where to go or how to make the journey were unsolved problems. Our college8 teachers were groping their way as unguided as we were. If we held them to be waiting in the background, most of the world thought them advancing in a wrong direction. They made distinctions so near a mathematical line that it seemed hard to say whether they were on the same or on different sides of it. At commencement, one day, the Ladie's Board of Managers were seated in dignity upon the platform, and no man except the white-haired president appeared in their midst. Then every girl graduate who especially came under the maternal wing could appear in person to read publicly her own essay in the great church packed to over-flowing. Next day, men only occupied the platform, and the weight of masculine wisdom was such that, for a girl to ready her own essay there, was not to be thought of. That was why Lucy Stone neither read nor wrote a graduating thesis. Perhaps that was why, in courteous reparation, at the delightful semi-centennial thirty years 9 later, though many feminine voices were heard publicly, the one woman who spoke on the greatest day of that festival was Lucy Stone. But time must hasten the tide of reminiscence, as it hurries on all of the other events of life. It was here, in the near vicinity and in your own city, that for many years she lived and toiled, at once a loving wife, and almost too careful and self-sacrificing mother, a home-keeper, the neatest and most orderly; and also an active, efficient worker for what she believed to be the best good of the whole Commonwealth. Her voice was heard in our own State Legislature, and perhaps in every town and larger community of the state. It was she who was most efficient in organizing the New Jersey State Suffrage Association, under whose auspices we meet here to night. Her very old friends are many of them with us to recognize and to commemorate her efficient life work in causes which were very far from popular when she wrought faith10 fully among us. It is eminently fitting that we hold just here this late memorial service in recognition of her championship of causes then not always acceptable even in the great churches of this city of Newark. It help to illustrate the universal fact that truth is mighty and will ultimately prevail, and that the All-seeing Eye is always "keeping watch above His own." Whoever can clearly perceive any great principle of justice and righteousness need never fear to announce it, to adopt it and to state it, instant in season and out of season. Whoever hears, in time must accept it, for the human mind can no more reject a truth clearly and impressively forced upon its attention, than the healthy human eye can reject the sunlight which is flooding it and bringing the surrounding objects into distinct vision. We meet to honor our pioneer to-night, just because she was not a palterer who waited for the advance of the crowd - just because she went forward confidently, wrapped in this sustaining conviction, clad in it as with a warm garment 11 which sheltered her. In the older days, to me, she was a close friend; in the later days, she was both friend and sister. We have not lost her. She has only gone forward to help make ready the mansions to which we shall find ourselves adapted. Tender memories thickly crowd around me this evening. My own little child, her niece, who began life here in your city and here yielded it back to the God who gave it, whose little form sleeps in your beautiful cemetery sheltered beside that of a precious aunt who for more than thirty years went in and out as wife of the pastor of one of your churches, grieving more and more a sweet saint waiting for her translation - these and beloved others known to come of you - have they not met and greeted each other with welcome and recognition? God's unseen world of love and life must be as much wider than anything yet manifested here as the most distant star is remote from earth and we are all moving on under the sublime rythm of an Infinite Order. Antoinette Brown Blackwell[*Antoinette Brown Blackwell "reminisced" + A. S. B. noted from what she said*] [Aunt Nettie, Aug. 22, 1903] "What a hard time I had financially at Oberlin!" It was just after she had finished her regular college studies, and wanted to study theology, and was preparing by studying Hebrew in the long vacation. Her father said he had spent as much on her education as on that of any of his other children, and could do no more. He wanted to prevent and switch her off from theology, knowing how hard it would be. Her brothers also disapproved of her studying theology, and would not help her. Mr. Peter Moyers, of Rochester, Mich., the principal of a school in Michigan where she had taught the previous vacation for 12 weeks (and who was very anxious to have her come back there and teach) promised to stand behind her financially, and she went on with her study of Hebrew, trusting to that. Then he suddenly died. Miss Adams, the lady principal at Oberlin, was very kind and friendly and sympathized time, but finally did. [She] Antionette had among her pupils a number of the theological students, and one of the Professors - Prof. Fairchild, who was afterwards president of the college, said, "It showed on which side their sympathies were." When [Aunt Nettie] Antoinette went to Oberlin she was put in a back room with no view but a wood-pile and back places. She made a sketch of the wood-pile from the window, and while she was doing it Miss Adams came in. She tried to hide the sketch, but too late. Miss Adams saw it, and she was at once made teacher of drawing to the girls of the lower classes, and among other girls who choose to come in to the drawing class. Later she was appointed to teach a composition class. So when this straightness of means for her theology course arrived, she had already been teaching drawing.with [Aunt Nettie] Antoinette, and promised that she should be allowed to do enough teaching in the institution to pay half her expenses. Then Miss Adams fell ill, and while she was ill the rest of the Ladies' Board, being strongly opposed to [Aunt Nettie's] Antoinette's studying theology, and determined to drive her back to teach at that place in Michigan, where they knew she was desired, got together and voted not to give her any teaching - that the teaching in the college must all be done by undergraduates! She was in despair, having no one to stand by her. Then Miss Atkins, the assistant principal, advised her to give lessons in drawing, and promised to get her pupils; and by this she was able to pay all her expenses, working only half as long hours as she would have done if teaching in the institution. Miss Atkins was a very sweet person; had lost her love and would not marry for a long SV (Reminiscences of Antoinette Brown.) During my first year at Oberlin we began an informal debating and speaking society. The college gave instruction to girls in writing, but in no branch of elocution. Some half a dozen girls, all members of the junior or third year ladies' class, met as often as practicable at the house of one of Lucy Stone's pupils, a colored woman, on the outskirts of the town. We went quietly, by ones and twos, as we felt it necessary to keep our proceedings unnoticed. Now and then we went into the woods, keeping something of an outlook against possible intruders, to hold our sessions. Some of the young women, who had no expectation of becoming public speakers, took little active part in the meetings, and were there largely as the audience, though of course, they were favorable to the project.(Antoinette L. Brown). Early in my senior year I read an essay appealing to the professor to allow such young women as desired it an opportunity of taking part, as the young men were required to do, in discussions and orations. I pointed out the injustice of requiring us to remain an hour each week as listeners for the benefit of the young men, while we had no part nor lot This injustice so impressed itself upon Prof Thome that he appointed Lucy Stone and me to choose our own subject and conduct the discussion at the next meeting of the class. This we did to the best of our ability, not only before a very full senior class but many outsiders, who had come with curiosity to this somewhat novel entertainment. At the close, Prof. Thome, who always criticized the speakers, giving kindly instruction as to improvement, gave more time than usual to criticisms, given in a friendly manner enough, but Lucy and I felt that since we had done our best there might have been at least come word of sympathy or approval. This semi-public speaking was so far disapproved by the faculty, that no repetition of a like kind was allowed to take place while we were still undergraduates. Prof. Thome offered to give us instruction in public speaking in a class of women, but the experiment was not a success. Most of the girls preferred to have such exercises by themselves, without the presence of the professor. It has always been supposed that the formation of women's college societies in Oberlin was influenced considerably by these several events. That same year Lucy Stone made her first public address at the anniversary of the West Indian Emancipation held in Oberlin. It was managed by young colored men, who invited her to become one of the speakers.President Mahan and some of the professors had a part in the exercises. The class which was graduated in 1847 was probably one of the most eccentric that Oberlin has ever known. Several of the young men and women believed in the equal rights of women. One or two were not members of churches, but most at least of the older students were. Someone said of the class of 1847 that we were made up of the odds and ends of creation. It was amusing that they were ready to print my poem on the class of 1847 in the Oberlin 50th Anniversary Jubilee book, where at the time we were considered serious thorns in the peace of the college.