● ● ● been in it as a ten-year-old child.28 Mrs. Patterson was “fond of society” and always “polite and entertaining to her numerous callers,” wrote a woman who worked for her through part of this time.29 “She was a very handsome woman,” said Sarah Turner. “Her grace of manner, together with the invariable neatness and good quality of her dress, made her a fascinating personage.”30
F. B. Eastman, who lived in Rumney, told of how his sister went to North Groton to have some dental work done by Patterson. “She met Mrs. Patterson,” he stated, “and her impression of her was that she was the most beautiful woman she had ever become acquainted with; the most beautiful disposition.”31 Part of this attractiveness probably lay in the fact, which was commented on by someone who knew her back in the happy Wilmington days, that she was “sincerely interested in those around her.”32 But where these people were so far her mental inferiors and her own physical energy was so limited, the cost of social life was very high.33
Something of this is suggested in the reminiscences of Myra Smith, the blind girl who was her maid for a year or two.34
Sympathetic though she was to the sufferings of her mistress, and appreciative of her kindness, she did not find it an easy household to live in. She told of disagreeable scenes between the Pattersons and of sharp words and quick reactions from Mrs. Patterson. In the perspective of time Myra was able to see that “this was not her usual self but was the breaking of overwrought nerves.” Still she had little understanding of just what that meant and her own feelings toward her mistress remained as changeable as Mrs. Patterson herself, who, after becoming ● ● ●
28 Marcia A.Wilson Swett, quoted in Sibyl Wilbur, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1929), p. 59.
29 Elmira Smith Wilson, 29 October 1911, Reminiscence, p. 2, MBEL.
30 [Sarah C. Turner, recorded in Albert E. Miller to Mary Baker Eddy, 5 May 1907, IC168.29.049, p. 2, MBEL.]
31 F. B. Eastman, affidavit, recorded in John H. Thompson, “Report of John H. Thompson, a result of an investigation made in December, 1906,” c. 1907, Subject File, John H. Thompson, p. 11, MBEL.
32 Elizabeth Earl Jones, “Mrs. Eddy in North Carolina and Memoirs,” c. 1938, Reminiscence, p. 50, MBEL.
33 One catches a glimpse here of the Mrs. Eddy of later years who, when she was passing through deep waters, would rally herself for her daily ride through Concord at any cost.
34 The years 1859–60 and perhaps earlier.