Authentic report informs us that no one better fills the arduous station of a New England housekeeper, in all its various and complicated departments. Nor are the calls of benevolence unheeded. Like that distinguished philanthropist, from whom she derives her intermediate name, she is said to go about doing good. Much of her time is devoted to the practical, silent, unambitious duties of charity. Nor must we omit the crowning praise of all—the report of her humble, unceasing, unpretending, untiring devotion.
We may not conclude this brief review of the life of Mrs. Sigourney, without allusion to a recent afflictive stroke of Providence, which has over-shadowed her path with a dark cloud, and almost bowed her spirit to the earth with its weight. She was the mother of two children; the youngest, an only son, had just arrived at the verge of manhood, when he was selected by the Destroying Angel as his own, and veiled from her sight.[1] A sorrow like this, she had never before known. Such a bereavement cannot take place and not leave desolation behind. Around this early-smitten one, the fond hopes of a mother’s heart had clustered; all those hopes are extinguished; innumerable, tender sympathies are cut away; the glowing expectations, nurtured for many years, are destroyed, and the cold urn left in their place. But the Divine Hand knows how to remove branches from the tree without blighting it; and though crushed and wounded, the faith of the Christian sustains the bereaved parent. Her reply to a friend who sympathized in her affliction, will show both the depth of her sorrow, and the source of her consolation—“God’s time and will are beautiful, and through bursts of blinding tears I give him thanks.”
The amount of Mrs. Sigourney’s literary labours may be estimated from the following list of her publications, which is believed to be nearly complete. The works are all prose, and all 12mo., unless otherwise expressly stated: “Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse,” 267 pages, 1815; “Biography and Writings of A. M. Hyde,” 241 pp., 1816; “Traits of the Aborigines,” a poem, 284 pp., 1822; “Sketch of Connecticut, forty years since,” 280 pp., 1824; “Poems,” 228 pp., 1827; “Biography of Females,” 112 pp., small size, 1829; “Biography of Pious Persons,” 338 pp., 1832, two editions the first year, now out of print, as are all the preceding volumes; “Evening Readings in History,” 128 pp., 1833; “Letters to Young Ladies,” 295 pp., 1833, twenty editions; “Memoirs of Phebe Hammond,” 30 pp., 1833; “How to be Happy,” 126 pp., 1833, two editions the first year, and several in London; “Sketches,” 216 pp., 1834; “Poetry for Children,” 102 pp., small size, 1834; “Select Poems,” 338 pp., 1834, eleven editions; “Tales and Essays for Children,” 128 pp., 1834; “Zinzendorff and other Poems,” 300 pp., 1834; “History of Marcus Aurelius,” 122 pp., 1835; “Olive Buds,” 136 pp., 1836;
- ↑ Andrew M. Sigourney died in Hartford, June, 1850, aged nineteen years.
