On Gold Puppy's blog a number of days (or weeks) ago, someone gave her this task (i.e. a meme in blog speak but I don't get that word):
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.
Like her -- my unknown neighbor who takes lovely pictures of my city -- I refuse the last part. But I stuck by the rule of the nearest book which happens to be a biography of my great great great or more grandfather, Joseph Duncan, Governor of Illinois, by my great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Duncan Putnam. So here is the passage (the context is the Duncan's election Congress in 1825):
"A contemporary letter expresses this feeling: "What will the old members of Congress say when D. [Duncan] is seen to rise (if he ever should be so unfortunate) in the place of C. [Cook]. They must believe us madmen and fools." On the other hand, Mr. Brown, the author of the memoirs of Cook, says: It is but just to General Duncan to say that his constituents were happily disappointed in his subsequent development of talents and tact, rendering him a worthy successor to our second representative."
I hope that all of us will feel that way after the end of this long, long presidential election. But in honor of International Women's Day tomorrow (March 10), you will not get a portrait of the Governor/Representative, but his wife, Elizabeth Caldwell Duncan who I think had 10 children only 3 of whom lived to be adults. Her name carried down to my grandmother.
Okay on to the bills. And later some knitting.
No comments:
Post a Comment