lines are taken from my poem, "Mother's Darling," written after this separation:
| " | Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea, |
| Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll! | |
| Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee, — | |
| Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul." |
My dominant thought in marrying again was to get back my child, but after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he should have a home with me. A plot was consummated for keeping us apart. The family to whose care he was committed, very soon removed to what was then regarded as the Far West.
After his removal a letter was read to my little son informing him that his mother was dead and buried. Without my knowledge he was appointed a guardian, and I was then informed that my son was lost. Every means within my power was employed to find him, but without success. We never met again until he had reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and two children, and by a strange providence had learned that his mother still lived, and came to see me in Massachusetts.
From Enterprise, Minn., where the Cheneys settled, Mrs. Patterson often had news of her son. Mrs. Cheney and her husband wrote frequently to their relatives and friends in North Groton and Tilton, giving details of their life and of George's progress. Mr. Cyrus Blood of North Groton, one of George Glover's early chums, remembers a visit he paid to Dr. Patterson, during which Mrs. Patterson read a letter from George, in which he told her of leaving the Cheneys and enlisting in the Civil War. This was in 1861 when George was seventeen. "She seemed as well pleased, and as proud," writes Mr. Blood, "as any mother with a boy in the army." The present writer has also read a letter from Mrs. Patterson to P. P. Quimby of Portland, Me., dated July 29, 1865, in which she describes her son as "mortally ill at Enterprise, Minn.," and declares that unless he is better at once she will start for the West "on Monday."
