In all this great commonwealth of North Carolina, where is there a more tragic reflection of our boasted civilization than that wretched mother left to end her days in the Pasquotank County poorhouse? Where is there a greater reflection on our recently imbibed and much boasted Christian spirit? Here was a woman widowed at the age of 30, just at the time when life offers most to the wife and mother, burdened with the care of four small children. Tasting the sadness of life, she clung more desperately to her four orphan children, working her fingers to the bone, denying herself every pleasure, and then when all were grown to manhood, and making their own way, she too went along to do her best to make life easier for them. Here she is today, feebly hobbling about with the aid of her cane, deaf alike to the pleasant and the heartless things that might be said, her vision failing, that she cannot read, spending her days in lonesomeness, without a word of complaint, patiently waiting for the end. It is not every person who remembers the words of Baroness von Hutton:
“It is a wonderful thing, a Mother;
Other folks can love you, but only your mother understands;
She works for you, looks after you, loves you, forgives you anything you may do, and then the only thing bad she ever does to you,
Is to die and leave you.”
From the editorial page of the Elizabeth City Independent, Friday, Feb. 20, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1925-02-20/ed-1/seq-4/#words=FEBRUARY+20%2C+1925
To see related story on Mrs. Simpson, go to https://ruralnchistory.blogspot.com/2025/02/turned-out-of-sons-home-mrs-clarkie.html
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