ROSE ELIZABETH CLEVELAND
PREACHED TO THE COLONIAL DAMES OF THE STATE
OF NEW TORK IN GRACE CHURCH IN NEW TORK
ON SUNDAY, JANU ART 26, 1919

CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY, D.D.
RECTOR OF THE PARISH

21 iqw

Cil ^»C<^ I

Rose Elizabeth Cleveland
"M-y heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered them
selves vrillingly aniong the people." — ^Judges v, 9.
THESE are words of a woman in a
stupendous song of victory. A cri
sis involving the risk of all she held
dear had been safely met. She had done
the work of a majestic and scornful woman
in calling the indifferent and the slothful to
a sense of their common peril. Through
her eloquence they gathered for defense.
And when the victory came, she saw it as
a gift, through the service of brave and un
selfish men, from the Lord God of Israel.
You, as representatives of the loyal
women of America, are gathered in this
church this afternoon to thank God for a
great victory. Thankful as you rightly are
to the courageous soldiers and sailors of our
allied nations, your gratitude finds a higher
and truer outcome: you are singing with
Deborah praise to the ultimate author of
victory. You, too, sing, putting new names
for old, "Lord, when thou wentest out from
the Marne, when thou marchest through
the fields of France, the earth trembled, and
the heavens dropped. The mountains

melted from before the Lord. Bless ye the
Lord." There is a deep note in your rejoicing.
You are thinking of brothers and sons and
husbands who on the field willingly offered
themselves. You are thinking of women,
old and young, who have thrust their plea
sures aside and have worked in common
drudgery to show the reality of their sym
pathy for a divine cause — the cause of free
dom and righteousness. As lovers of your
country you are rejoicing that the whole
people of our land went to the help of the
Lord against the mighty. You had feared
that we had grown soft, ease-loving, selfish.
You know now that a supreme crisis found
enough strength and sacrifice and love to
respond to God's call. You thank God to
day not only for a free world, but for a
great nation, our very own, which took its
place among the other greatest nations, and
saved a world from tyranny and wrong, that
it may be the home of a happy. God-fearing
people both now and ever.
You would perhaps shrink from having
me set forth the glory of woman's part in
the struggle. Though it is the women who
have suffered most as their beloved have
fought, have been wounded, have died, yet
you would point to the heroism of camp and
battlefield, and say, "Let the praise be

there." But because you are passing your
example to coming generations, I beg that
you will allow me this afternoon to make
some record of the womanhood whose faith
fulness and devotion have been second to
nothing which the war has shown. To this
end, I am going to be concrete, and to tell
you of a distinguished American woman
whose name deserves grateful remembrance
through the years. I am going to speak of
Rose Elizabeth Cleveland. She is typical
of great numbers of American women whose
names may be forgotten, but whose words
and deeds have gone deep into the achieve
ment of the war.
Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, the sister of
one of our great Presidents, was born in this
State seventy-two years ago, the daughter
of a Presbyterian clergyman, Richard,
whose first American ancestor, Moses Cleve
land, came to Massachusetts from Ipswich,
England, in 1635. There was a large fam
ily, and though the Manse was a home of
culture, there was poverty. Two of the
sons fought in the Civil War. The father,
himself a graduate of Yale, was unable to
send his most promising son to college; and
his daughter. Rose, after a good education
in Stoughton Seminary, was obliged to
teach school. And here I should like to
pause to say one passing word, inadequate

as it must be, of the unending debt which
this nation owes to the earnest and able
women who give their lives to teach our
children and youth, especially in the public
schools. Miss Cleveland delivered lectures
also, and wrote books and articles on liter
ary subjects. Thus she was unconsciously
being fitted to become mistress of the White
House and, for the first fifteen months of
her brother's opening term as President, to
represent a fine type of American woman
hood. Modest, dignified, simple, she stood
for high qualities in our national life.
The years since then have been quiet
years for Miss Cleveland, spent largely
abroad. Her religious feeling was expressed
in her translation, nine years ago, of St.
Augustine's Soliloquies, to which she added
notes and an introduction. Those who
knew her, instantly recognized her power
and charm, and counted her among the
women never to be forgotten.
When the war broke out. Miss Cleveland
was living at Bagni di Lucca in Italy. She
and her fellow-countrywoman, Mrs. Whip
ple (the widow of Bishop Whipple), who
was also living in Bagni di Lucca, threw
themselves into work, first for England and
Belgium, and then, when Italy entered the
war, for Italy. It was like them not to go
to Rome and Florence, to which multitudes

flocked to give aid; they stayed in the little
town of Bagni di Lucca, which includes
many of the surrounding mountain villages.
The people knew them, and these American
ladies were instinctively aware that they
could help the more because they were
known and trusted. In the early days of
the war, when many people in the Italian
villages were of doubtful loyalty to the
Allies, Miss Cleveland, though seventy years
old, went about among the people far and
near, making eloquent speeches which ex
plained the meaning of the war, and then
aroused her hearers to go out to the help
of the Lord against the mighty. Wben the
crushing defeat came, and the Austrians
swept the Italians before them, when re
fugees poured into Bagni di Lucca, and
hungry, sorrowful, dying people cried out
that peace should come at any price. Miss
Cleveland, worn with work, went forth
again, gathering the people, to incite them
to fortitude and patience. An Italian paper
with one of these speeches was sent to me,
and I can beair testimony to its ringing
appeal. Not only the Italians' language
had become hers, but their fire, their emo
tion. It seemed almost impossible to me
that this quiet, reserved American woman
could have freed herself in such Latin ec-
stacy as I was reading. She was, indeed, a

Deborah calling to the hills and valleys to
come to the help of the Lord against the
mighty. Meantime, ceaseless work went on for
children and older people in Bagni di Lucca.
A hospital, a work room for refugees, schools
for refugee children, all were started and
continued: in all these Miss Cleveland did
her generous share. Miss Cleveland and
Mrs. Whipple, denying themselves all but
necessities, supported tJiese agenciesof mercy.
They did not ask for help from America till
the number of suffering refugees overwhelm
ed even their generosity.
Then came the pestilence. People began
to die like sheep. The refugees overcrowded
the villages, the food was poor and scant.
The authorities, overworked, were in de
spair. Days of anguish, people dying within
twenty-four hours of seizure, the passing
bell constantly ringing — what was to be
done? One night Miss Cleveland awoke
from a sound sleep: there was absolute
silence; then she heard distinctly a voice
saying: "You must act for these people.
Open the church if there is nothing better.
Send for trained nurses. Begin work at
once." Before dawn she went to Mrs.
Whipple, saying, "I must start this morn
ing, see the bewildered Mayor, send tele-
8

grams to Florence and Livorno for nurses,
and begin at once."
These women had exhausted every lira,
but they went forward on faith, believing
that Americans at home would come to the
rescue. While Miss Cleveland secured doc
tors and nurses, Mrs. Whipple scoured the
shops for every bit of cloth which the women
in the work-room could make into bed-linen
and clothing, an empty house was hired to
take the children from the infected homes,
to save the children, and to make more
space for the nurses and doctors in the
stricken places.
To show just what the conditions were, I
read to you a passage from one of Mrs.
Whipple's letters, written last fall, Octo
ber 28:
"There is a mountain village of this Com
mune, about ten miles up the valley, from
which point one must climb on foot for
about an hour and a half before reaching
the wild eyrie which clings to the top of the
mountain as a wasp's nest clings to a high
boulder. It is a mediseval village attached
to an ancient castle ruin. The inhabitants
are desperately poor, and now, because of
food difficulties and frightful prices for
everything, they are half-starved. Their
houses are like caverns, dark and forbidding.
Most of the men, all of fighting age, are at

the Front. But they brought the Spanish
fever in its most virulent form to this remote
place, on their ten days' leave of absence.
In an isolated place like this sky village,
with no water except rain water, of course
the contagious sickness has full sway. The
priest, the only one in authority, felt the
sickness coming on, and ran away.
"Hearing that people were lying dead in
every house, I determined to know the
truth, and early Sunday morning I scaled
the height to find that the half had not
been told. The few overworked doctors left
in the valley had had too much to do to risk
their lives in climbing to such an eyrie of
pestilence. When I scaled the last rock-
path into the village^ the horror began. I
picked my way through the net-work of
strange alleys winding one above another
under dark arches and uncanny lurking-
places followed by about a dozen haggard,
tottering men and women who were the
only ones able to be out of bed. In every
house the inmates lay sick, dying, and dead.
From one window came a hollow voice,
"Signora, three of my family are dead on the
floor, and five are sick and dying." An
equally grewsome tale came from every
house. From one to four dead bodies in
nearly every house, and the people too weak
to remove them. Thirty-five, however, had
10

been gotten up to the Campo Santo, but on
this rock-mountain there is not more than
three inches of earth to cover them, and so
the eagles living among the closely surround
ing peaks have the benefit of these frightful
conditions. Miss Cleveland has sent a brave
nurse, an Italian, with an assistant, and
some medicines, to the rescue to see what
can be done at once. Every second is pre
cious. The very air reeks with death. I
have never dreamed of such a nightmare of
horror. When I entered the village and
told the dull, huddled group that help
would be sent them before night, two poor
ghosts crawled up to the church and began
ringing the bell in thanksgiving. I have not
touched upon the other horrors as I found
them, but nothing was lacking in that
direction. You wonder how such a state
of things could exist. Remote places like
these mountain villages are out of sight,
and a depleted treasury and suffering people,
after four years of war, easily forget the
hidden suffering when there is so much in
evidence to groan over. And some of the
bravest of the Alpine fighters come from
these villages! If any of them come safely
from the battlefield it will be a sad home
coming! "Ah! this coming winter! We dread it,
but God help us to pull through. Pray that
11

the scourge may end soon. There were fifty
funerals in Florence yesterday. We need
money for all this more than my pen can
tell you. If our friends at home can cable
us money, we ourselves gladly take all risks;
for unhappily it is a very contagious epi
demic, and the air is heavy with germs. But,
thank God, we are not afraid, knowing that
if we are meant to be of service to these
poor sufferers, we shall be protected. If
not — ^but that is in God's hands, and we are
content." Living with Mrs. Whipple and Miss
Cleveland, and working valiantly by their
side, was a Mrs. Erickson, an English lady.
The first Sunday in November, after heroic
service to the refugees, Mrs. Erickson fell
ill with the Spanish fever. The following
Friday she was dead. The next Sunday
morning. Miss Cleveland, having taken the
infection by lifting her friend upon her
pillow, was seized by the fever, and on the
following Friday her work in this world was
over. I know you will desire the rest of the
story in Mrs. Whipple's words:
"Miss Cleveland was one of the noblest,
truest, and really greatest characters I have
ever known. She was a passionate lover of
her country, to which she has been an honour
here. She was a true friend of Italy, an
inspiration to us all. She never at any time
12

lost courage or failed to rise and keep to
the highest plane of thought and act. It is
strange indeed that, answering bravely the
call that came to her in the night, by her
band of five trained nurses, who made the
crusade against dirt and neglect and by
their faithful care turned the dying into
convalescents, she should have become the
victim herself!
"The funeral was the most impressive
sight I have ever seen. She was wrapped in
the American fiag. The English chaplain
came from Leghorn for the service. Mrs.
Lawrence (her niece), the Chaplain's sweet
wife, and one of Miss Cleveland's nurses
(the daughter of the late Bishop of Aber
deen), were the only English-speaking peo
ple. The rest were Italian friends.
"By order of the Mayor all shops and
business places were closed. From every
house was a flag at haff-mast, tied with
black. The hearse on either side was
guarded by the Mayor and the American
Consul, who was sent by Ambassador Page
to represent him. The chief of the town
authorities walked on either side holding
the gold cords. After two carriages for the
household, there followed a long, long pro
cession on foot — the citizens, the schools of
the Commune, the two schools of the refu
gees, bearing flags at half-mast, and then
13

the great procession of the refugees them
selves, bearing wreaths.
"Not a sound was heard in the streets as
the silent procession moved on to the little
English cemetery on the banks of the Lima.
At the grave the American flag was low
ered by the Consul and then all the people
threw in each a flower, and the sun turned
the snow-clad mountain into a dazzling
scene — and I came back!"
Italy spoke through the former Prime
Minister, Signer Luigi Luzzatti. "The death
of Rose Elizabeth Cleveland," he wrote, "is
a national grief and loss, on account of the
great and wise beneficence which that true
lay -sister has distributed among the unfor
tunates of Bagni di Lucca and other places
in Italy. I beg to make known my deep and
sincere condolences to the friends and rela
tives of the honoured sister of the late Presi
dent of the United States."
And what shall we say in this quiet church
this afternoon.'' Our sympathy swiftly
crosses the sea to the brave friend who in
the desolate house at Bagni di Lucca goes
on, alone, with the work of American pa
triotism and mercy. And then our thanks
arise to the Lord God that he has given to
our Nation one more radiant example of
14

loyal American womanhood in his beloved
servant. Rose Elizabeth Cleveland.
Let them that love thee, O Lord, be
as the sun when he goeth forth in his
might.

15