A “Successful” Woman by Mrs. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 12, 1915

A “Successful” Woman

By Mrs. I. H. E.

EVERY normal wife and mother desires above all earthly things that her work—the work committed to her hands in the garden of Eden itself—shall be a success. The ideals of this attainment may differ in details, according to environment, but in the great essentials they are much the same in palace and cot and all the homes worthy the name that lie between these extremes,—she desires to be a “helpmeet” for the little joys and sorrows of daily living as well as for times of special stress and strain; to run her home smoothly, ever keeping its spirit sweet and its standards high; and to bring up her children to fear God and respect those in authority.

Those who desire such success are, as we have said, many. Perhaps the reason so few attain it is because so many unimportant things are allowed to distract the mind from the great object to be gained.

“I have known one preeminently successful woman,” writes Louise Collier Wilcox, in the August Delineator. “Whenever I try to think of some one with whom I should be willing to exchange not only places in life—there are so many people whose places we should like to have—but of some one with whom I should like to change whole personalities, I always think of that successful woman.”

“There is a current saying that to be successful we ought to begin with our ancestors, and I do not doubt the truth of it. The successful woman to whom I allude was born at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, and one of his brothers was her direct ancestor. She married young and was the mother of thirteen children, every one of whom turned out to be handsome, exceptionally clever, and good. She adopted two other children who needed a home, and I suppose there never was a more wholesome atmosphere for children to grow in than her home.

“I wish I could describe that big, plain wooden house in a small Southern town. It might throw some light on the qualities that made my heroine so preeminently successful. There were no curtains at the windows, because light and air in the house were more valuable to growing children than conventional furnishings. Moreover, curtains collected dust and were apt to get torn. There was very little grass on the lawn, because it was more useful as a ball ground for nine growing sons than for ornamentation. There was practically no bric-a-brac in the house, because it would only be in the way of romping little ones.

“One tale I must tell: One warm Thanksgiving Day, when doors and windows were wide, an intimate friend passing heard peals of the merriest laughter, and turned in to hear what the jest might be. It chanced that parents and all thirteen children were at the table, and the waitress, coming in with the Thanksgiving dinner on a huge tray, had stubbed her toe and fallen, and the dinner lay strewn about the floor, while the mother of the thirteen was helping the maid up and leading the laughter.

“‘That’s just sheer carelessness,’ said a commentator, hearing the story. No, that was evidence of one of the most valuable qualities a human being could possess—a sense of proportion to values. The merriment, the good nature, the joy of Thanksgiving Day, were of more value than china or dinner, and that great woman knew it.

“People sometimes said of the successful woman of whom I speak, that her children were carelessly reared because they went to school without hats. But there was one thing they didn’t do,—they never left their home in the morning until they had gathered with father and mother to read the Bible and to pray. While the boys were still boys, they were always in the sitting room with their mother, and not out on the streets at the fall of darkness.

“It seems to me in looking back that that life is the most successful I have ever seen. Those thirteen children are all grown now and are out in the world. They are all doing good work; each one is a valuable citizen, doing the world’s work ably, happily, honestly. Did I say doing the world’s work? I meant something quite different. I meant doing God’s work. I dare not tell what each one of these children is consecrated in some definite way to the work of God.”

And as these men and women go about their Master’s business, lifting their share of the world’s load, bearing their part of its burdens, think you that one of them fails to lay a reverent tribute at his mother’s feet as often as thoughts of her wise counsel and sunny presence flash into the mind? A life that guides and directs and leads into happy, whole-hearted service is successful indeed.

MRS. I. H. E.