Life
Mary Boykin Miller was born on March 31, 1823, on her maternal grandparents' plantation, called Mount Pleasant, near Stateburg, South Carolina, in the High Hills of Santee. Her parents were Mary Boykin (1804–85) and Stephen Decatur Miller (1788–1838), who had served as a U.S. Representative. In 1829 he was elected governor of South Carolina and in 1831 as a U.S. Senator. The family then lived in Charleston. Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia.
At age 12, Miller began her formal education in Charleston, where she boarded at Mme. Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from the elite of the planter class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) after its Revolution. Miller became fluent in French and German, and received a strong education.
Leaving politics, her father took his family to Mississippi where he bought extensive acreage. It was a crude, rough frontier compared to Charleston. He owned three cotton plantations and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but was much more fond of the city.
Read more about this topic: Mary Boykin Chesnut
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Mothers who are strong people, who can pursue a life of their own when it is time to let their children go, empower their children of either gender to feel free and whole. But weak women, women who feel and act like victims of something or other, may make their children feel responsible for taking care of them, and they can carry their children down with them.”
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“There is no going back,
For standing still means death, and life is moving on,
Moving on towards death. But sometimes standing still is also life.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)