USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun County, Michigan, a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 110
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Mrs. Kellogg has long been prominently identified with the W. C. T. U., in 1882 being appointed national superintendent of the Depart- ment of Hygiene. This position made heavy demands upon her time, requiring her to hold health institutes in various parts of the country, and to prepare a syllabus of lessons to cover the field occupied by her department. In 1885 she was appointed associate superintendent of the Social Purity department of the W. C. T. U., which work brought her in close contact with Frances E. Willard.
Out of her experiences in the Social Purity work in the W. C. T. U., grew a pamphlet, in 1890, entitled "Talks to Girls," which has enjoyed a very extended circulation. Other books written by Mrs. Kellogg are "Studies in Character Building," published in 1905, and "Science in the Kitchen," a book on popular dietetics first published in 1892, and since passing through several large editions. Along with these duties Mrs. Kellogg has found time to continue her work as associate editor of Good Health Magazine, a position which she still holds, and to take an active interest in the work of the Michigan Women's Press Association.
Doctor and Mrs. Kellogg's home is celebrated throughout the world by reason of the large family of children which they have adopted into their home, in lieu of children of their own. All told more than forty children, in most cases orphans and waifs from the submerged quarters of our large cities, have found there not only protection, but home in the highest sense of the word, proving abundantly that it is not so much blood that counts as the care and devotion of a mother.
WASHINGTON GARDNER,* grandson of John Gardner and sixth and youngest son of John Lewis and Sarah (Goodin) Gardner, was born on
* With Mr. Gardner's permission we here reproduce a sketch of his life by Captain Robert F. Bartlett, a boyhood friend, which appears in a history of Mr. Gardner's native county of Morrow, Ohio, and published by this firm in 1911.
PUBLISHERS.
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a farm two miles due north from South Woodbury, February 16, 1845. In his fourth year the mother died, leaving a family of nine children, six sons and three daughters. Shortly after his mother's death, the subject of this sketch was taken into the home of his paternal uncle, for whom he had been named, and until he entered the army lived in or . near the village of Westfield. The young lad early learned the lessons of self denial and self help. In the spring of 1859, when but fourteen years old, his uncle engaged him to work for Robert Kearney, a most estimable man who owned a farm a little west of Westfield, for six dollars a month and board; the next year, for the same party, for seven; and the next, for eight dollars a month. Mr. Kearney had a small but well selected library, of which the "hired boy" made good use during his leisure hours and in the long winter evenings after his next day's school lessons had been prepared.
In the spring of 1860, after a winter in the village school, taught by Mr. Joseph B. Breckenridge, who at this writing is still a resident of Westfield and very proud of the career of his former pupil, he attended the Mount Hesper Academy located in the Friends Settlement near South Woodbury, then and for many years conducted by the late Jesse and Cynthia Harkness. Many of the sons and daughters of Morrow county were educated at this one time well-known and popular school.
On the evening of Saturday, October 26, 1861, a largely attended war meeting was held in the lecture room of the Methodist Episcopal church, addressed by James Olds, of Mount Gilead. At the close of the address a call was made for volunteers and young Gardner was the first of a con- siderable number of Westfield boys to go forward to the desk on the plat- form and write down his name. The boy recruit, who had hitherto scarcely been outside of his native county, now entered upon a new and strange life. It was a rough and dangerous, but valuable school. Its lessons given in the camp, on the march, around the bivouac, on the picket post, during the siege, upon the battlefield and in the hospital were, if rightly applied, such as to better fit one for the subsequent duties and responsibilities of life. Mr. Gardner became a member of Company D, Sixty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry Volunteers. It is enough to say that this (according to the official records) youngest member of the company shared every campaign, march, siege and battle participated in by his regiment until hit in battle on the afternoon of Saturday, May 14, 1864, at Resaca, Georgia, in Sherman's campaign for Atlanta. His clothes were pierced by the bullet of a Confederate sharp-shooter in the battle of Stone River and his bayonet scabbard cut into, and the little finger of the left hand grazed on the second day at Chickamauga, but blood was not drawn until the well aimed bullet was fired at Resaca which permanently disabled and made him henceforth a sufferer for life. The wounded sol- dier was fortunate in the care he received in the temporary hospital near the battlefield and again in Chattanooga, where he was confined for months on a cot in the First Presbyterian church, which was used as a hospital in that city. He was here when Hood's army invaded the Ten- nessee capital in December, 1864, and on the 14th of that month, the day before the battle of Nashville opened, he was honorably discharged by reason of expiration of term of service.
Returning to the home of his uncle, Washington Gardner, at West- field on a Friday evening in December, 1864, a veteran of more than three years of service in war though still a youth under twenty years of age, at once put into execution a resolution formed while in the army, viz .- that if he lived to get home he would go to school. On the Monday morning following his arrival home from the war on the preceding Friday night he enrolled as a pupil in the Beach Grove academy at Ashley, Ohio. After one term here he entered the preparatory department of Baldwin Vol. II-48
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University, Berea, Ohio, where he remained four terms and in the fall of 1866 matriculated as a freshman in Hillsdale College, Michigan. He remained in this institution for three years having in the meantime among others as fellow students, Will Carleton, the poet; Albert J. Hop- kins, for many years a member of Congress, and later a senator of the United States from Illinois; John F. Downey, dean of the University of Minnesota and one of the foremost educators of the middle west; and Joseph H. Moore, now and for many years one of the justices of the Michi- gan Supreme Court. During his senior vacation in the summer of 1869 he visited among his old friends in Morrow county, some of whom pre- vailed upon him to take his last collegiate year at Delaware. After a successful examination he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University, from which institution he graduated from the classical course on the 30th day of June, 1870, receiving the degree of A. B. and later that of A. M. in cursu.
During all his school days Mr. Gardner purposed to study law, with a political career in view, but while at Delaware influences were brought to bear that changed the course he had previously marked out for himself. The fall of 1871 found him a student in the Boston University, School of Theology. In the second year of his course his health gave way, after a continuous strain in school and hard work in vacations to earn money with which to meet his expenses in college. In the fall of 1875 he entered the Albany Law School, from which he subsequently graduated as vale- dictorian of his class. In the meantime he had married Miss Anna Lee Powers, of Abington, Massachusetts. Mrs. Gardner, on the paternal side, is connected with the well-known Powers family of New Hampshire, her father being a native of that state, distinguished in sculpture, law and politics. Her mother was a Miss Reed, related to the people of that name both in Massachusetts and Maine. Her ancestors on the maternal side have lived in Plymouth county since the landing of the Pilgrims from the Mayflower. To Mr. and Mrs. Gardner have been born seven children-Grace Bartlett, Mary Theodosia, Carleton Frederick, Elton Goldthwaite, Raymond Huntington, Lucy Reed and Helen Louis. All are living except the first named, who died in early infancy. All are married and settled in life, except Miss Helen, who is at this writing a. girl of eighteen.
In the fall of 1876 Mr. Gardner removed with his family to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and entered upon the practice of law in partnership with Mr. Samuel A. Kennedy, a former college chum. After one year in the law he entered the Michigan Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church and preached for twelve years, at the end of which time he was tendered and accepted a professorship in Albion College, Michigan. In March, 1894, while serving in this capacity he was, without solicitation, requested by Governor John T. Rich to accept the position of secretary of state to fill out an unexpired term. Laying the matter before the trustees of the college they advised him to accept. He was subsequently twice nominated by acclamation and elected to the same office. While serving as secretary of state he was nominated and elected to congress by the Republicans of the Third Michigan district and was five times elected to succeed himself, serving in the 56th, 57th, 58th, 59th, 60th and 61st Con- gresses. Ten of his twelve years in congress he was a member of the committee on appropriations. During his service on this committee estimates aggregating $3,405,927,100.10 were considered and bills amounting to $3,185,567,336.69 were framed and carried through con- gress, resulting in a saving to the government, below the estimates, of $220,359,763.41. Mr. Gardner also served as chairman of the committee on expenditures in the Department of Commerce and Labor. Through the committee on appropriations he was closely associated with the build-
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ing of the Panama canal. It was before this committee that the chief and his assistant engineers annually appeared to explain the progress of the enterprise. Three times at the request of the President of the United States Mr. Gardner, with his associate committee members, visited the Canal Zone and inspected the work with great care in order that the com- mittee might have the fullest and most accurate information upon which Porto Rico, Jamaica and other of the tropical countries.
to base their recommendations to the Congress. He also visited Cuba,
In Congress Mr. Gardner had the reputation of preparing with great care and thoroughness of detail the appropriation bills of which he had charge and of advocating and defining the measures presented by him with such clearness and force that not infrequently bills carrying many millions of dollars passed the critical scrutiny of the house with very little of change. For ten years he was a member and for four years chairman of the sub-committee having in charge the District of Columbia appropriation bills. Such was the manner in which he discharged the duties assigned him and so greatly were his services appreciated by the citizens at Washington, that on the eve of his retirement from congress a public dinner was tendered him at which there were present the Presi- dent of the United States, the speaker of the house of representatives, many members of congress, and about three hundred of the foremost citizens of the Federal City. President Taft, in speaking for the capital of the nation, said in part: "I came here to join with you in testifying to the gratitude that we all ought to feel toward a member of congress who has given so effective attention and so much of his time in Congress for the benefit of the District of Columbia." The Hon. John W. Yerkes in behalf of the citizens of Washington, in a personal tribute to Mr. Gard- ner said: "This homage, these thanks of the people of Washington-a crown unlike the laurel and the bay will never wither-must, notwith- standing your modesty and simplicity, your abhorrence of show and parade, accompany you back to your home in the Lake state, a trophy of war yet of victory; the capture by you of the high esteem and affection of a great city." Major William V. Judson, engineer commissioner of the District of Columbia, in behalf of the district, said: "Mr. Gardner has never inserted in an appropriation bill a single item to gratify a friend or to win the applause of the thoughtless. No man in Washington owes him a thank you for a special favor. I bear witness to the sterling qualities of this man. His honesty, infinite patience and intelligent application are too unworthily recognized by any mere public dinner. In giving this slight token of respect we feel that we honor ourselves more than we do him." Admiral C. H. Stockton, the acting president of George Washington University, said, that "the hand of Representative Gardner is to be seen in every good thing in the district. There is no one more just or better qualified to present our great projects to con- gress." Mr. Speaker Cannon said: "Have come to give my personal, committee and political friend a sad farewell, because his going from us is a real loss to the American congress." No greater welcome has ever been accorded a guest of honor than when Mr. Gardner was introduced by the toast master, Mr. John Jay Edison, to acknowledge the tributes paid him. The entire company arose and cheered him mightily. Hand- kerchiefs were waved and flowers were tossed toward him.
We insert the above extracts from the Washington Star of February 26, 1911, as showing at the end of a long career in congress the esteem in which a Morrow county boy is held in the capital city of the nation. Surely it is a faraway distance from the place of an obscure, motherless and self-dependent lad of fourteen years working on a farm at six dollars a month to the central figure in a great banquet hall, in the capital of the nation, receiving as a tribute for public service, well and faithfully
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performed, homage and plaudits from some of the nation's most distin- guished citizens. It is but another illustration of the possibilities of the American boy. The citizens of Morrow county are justly proud of its having been the birth-place of Washington Gardner. They are proud of his useful and honorable career. His home is at Albion, Michigan. -
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