Early Life
John Huy Addams was born in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania in on July 12, 1822. He married Sarah Weber, five years his elder, while still living in Kreidersville, Pennsylvania. Both families, Addams and Weber, were from old Pennsylvanian lineage; Addams' ancestors had been granted by land by William Penn in the 17th century. In 1844 Addams, then 22, and his new bride arrived in Cedarville, Illinois, near the Illinois-Wisconsin state border in Stephenson County. Addams established himself quickly as a successful mill operator when he purchased the Cedar Creek Mill in 1844. When the couple first arrived in Stephenson County they lived in a small two-room home with a loft. In 1854 Addams completed construction on an addition which made the Addams' home a much larger, prominent Federal style house. Though the couple had nine children, only four survived to adulthood; their eighth child was Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams. Jane Addams was born at the Addams House in Cedarville on September 6, 1860.
In January 1863 Sarah Addams, then pregnant with her ninth child, went to assist in the delivery of a baby for the wagon-maker's wife. During the birth, she collapsed and was carried home. Sarah's own baby was delivered prematurely and as a result, stillborn. Sarah Addams died a week later, Jane Addams was just 2 years 4 months old at the time of her mother's death. Jane Addams was cared for mostly by her older sisters after 1863.
Read more about this topic: John H. Addams
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
—Fred G. Gosman (20th century)
“To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)