Family
Austin married Francis 'Amanda' Connell-Austin (August 12 18-- - August 15, 1928) of Prescott, Ontario on June 16, 1881. She kept a scrap-book of family events and memories from 1881-1917 which is now part of the collection of the archives of the United Church of Canada/Victoria University. While a scrapbook kept by Amanda is an important existent source of information about Ausin's life, very little information remains about Amanda herself.
The couple had four children, all born while Austin was principal at Alma College.
Albert Edward Austin (September 20, 1882 - Nov 19th 1918) died of influenza-pneumonia in San Bernardino, California, where he had been involved in the newspaper trade since moving from Rochester.
Alma H. Austin received a B.A in Philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1911. She taught at the Western New York Institute for Deaf Mutes. Alma Austin outlived her father and her mother, and came into possession of their papers and files. During this period she erased her own date of birth from all currently existent archival sources. Only the order of entries into a family scrapbook indicates that she was born between her brother Albert and her sister Beatrice.
Beatrice Evelyn Austin (February 27, 1888 –October 10, 1927) was associate editor of Reason. She was a strong proponent of the League of Nations and was greatly displeased when the United States declined to take part in that organisation. She was an 'earnest student' of metaphysical healing and during President Wilson's illness she organised a group of over 100 healers to work on a united effort to save the man she referred to as 'the emancipator'. She led a Spartan life and was uninterested in physical things. Her father wrote in her obituary that 'None knew her but to love her'.
Sadly B. F. Austin's youngest daughter, Kathleen Dell Austin, died before her third birthday (September 9, 1893-April 19, 1896). This sort of tragedy was not uncommon at the time, even among the wealthier middle classes.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Fish Austin
Famous quotes containing the word family:
“You can read the best experts on child care. You can listen to those who have been there. You can take a whole childbirth and child-care course without missing a lesson. But you won’t really know a thing about yourselves and each other as parents, or your baby as a child, until you have her in your arms. That’s the moment when the lifelong process of bringing up a child into the fold of the family begins.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“The East is the hearthside of America. Like any home, therefore, it has the defects of its virtues. Because it is a long-lived-in house, it bursts its seams, is inconvenient, needs constant refurbishing. And some of the family resources have been spent. To attain the privacy that grown-up people find so desirable, Easterners live a harder life than people elsewhere. Today it is we and not the frontiersman who must be rugged to survive.”
—Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978)
“At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another—generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (20th century)