This last calamity to the house and family of Mrs. Gibbons
(the sacking of her home by the recent riot) presents a fit opportunity for her
friends and those of her children to bear a testimony to the esteem in which
they hold her. We propose, therefore, to give her a benefit.
Mrs. G., as you know, has spent her whole life in unrewarded
devotion to that same wretched class of people who have now so ruthlessly
destroyed her home, and she has spent twelve months of the last sixteen at her
own expense in nursing our sick and wounded in the hospitals, utterly
regardless of her own interests, and now she returns to find her home a desert,
and literally has hardly where to lay her head. It is high time, therefore, for
her friends to show her that her good works have not been all in vain. Besides,
I know that unless something of the kind is done, the family will actually
suffer from the recent loss.
SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public
Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 299
