Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 3

[464] expenditures in all their departments. Mr. Garrison's support was naturally rendered more precarious than ever, while some special burdens were laid upon him. In the just-quoted letter to Mr. May, he wrote: “After a wasting sickness of nine months duration (more than six of which were passed under my roof), my aunt Charlotte saw ‘the last of earth’ on the 2d inst. I rejoice that I was able to give her every attention, and to do all in my power to relieve and save her; but her illness has thrown upon me a heavy pecuniary load,—some hundreds of dollars additional.” Charlotte E. Newell; Lib. 27.163.

Mrs. Newell was the youngest and much loved sister of Fanny Lloyd. On her losing her employment in 1854, Mr. Garrison wrote to his widowed relative, offering her a¹ home for the remainder of her days. ‘While I have a place to shelter my own head,’ he said, ‘or a crust of bread to eat, you shall share it with me.’ On the very eve of her dissolution, a curious discovery was made, after more than thirty years, of a few hundred dollars belonging to Mr. Garrison's mother in a Baltimore savings-bank. This sum, by the friendly intervention of John Needles, was paid over to the rightful heir, and served to discharge a part of the expense of Mrs. Newell's medical attendance and burial. “It looks almost like a providential occurrence,” Ms. Sept. 22, 1857. wrote Mr. Garrison to Mr. Needles. ‘If my mother can take cognizance of what I am doing in this matter, her heart will thrill with delight to perceive to what a use her bequest is put.’

But the charity of Mr. Garrison and his wife neither² began nor ended at home. Straitened themselves for means in this gloomy time, their active sympathy was extended to various forms of poverty and distress—from a reduced Irish family to refugees from Napoleon's prisonhouse at Cayenne.