Eliza Allen - Early Life

Early Life

Eliza Allen was born January 27, 1826, to one of the most prominent families in Maine and enjoyed a comfortable early life on the family's estate. Eliza was well-educated and enjoyed reading. A Canadian family by the name of Billings moved into the area and he and his oldest son, William, worked as day-laborers to support a large family. William Billings often worked for Eliza's father. The two met secretly, and Eliza and William fell in love. Eliza promised herself to William, though she knew her parents would not approve. When they found out, her parents threatened to disinherit her and throw her out of their home.

William decided the Mexican-American War afforded him an opportunity to better himself in the eyes of his fiance's parents and volunteered for the U.S. Army. Eliza, who says in her autobiography that she had read about Deborah Sampson in the American Revolution and Lucy Brewer in the War of 1812, determined that she would follow him and volunteered herself under the alias George Mead the next day.

Read more about this topic:  Eliza Allen

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    I looked at my daughters, and my boyhood picture, and appreciated the gift of parenthood, at that moment, more than any other gift I have ever been given. For what person, except one’s own children, would want so deeply and sincerely to have shared your childhood? Who else would think your insignificant and petty life so precious in the living, so rich in its expressiveness, that it would be worth partaking of what you were, to understand what you are?
    —Gerald Early (20th century)

    We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.
    Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)