Book manuscript- (c) 2009 by William Sims Bainbridge

He answered, “Mother, do not set your heart on it. It is not on the market, and there is no intimation that it will be.”

Firmly, she said, “Wait. We will have it. Do not look further.” With great difficulty, she dictated a letter to a friend, saying “I am going to a place called ‘Bethel, the House of God.’ I don’t know how I am going, but I will get there.”

Two days later, to the astonishment of everybody else in the family, the farm was offered to them, and they immediately bought it. Will exclaimed, “It seemed absolutely providential!”

Within two weeks, Lucy was there. For Will, this peaceful spot in the foothills of the Berkshires was far more beautiful than ancient Bethel. “Surely the Lord did bless this place; with its rolling hills; with the frosting white on the distant mountain tops in the early and late winter; with its splendid foliage; its healthy air; its quiet and calm, away from the throbbing noise of the great city. Man has not destroyed it, as he often does.”⁹⁰⁹

Lucy had wanted a farm with animals, and animals there were. Two white work horses, Mary and Julia, stood like sentinels in the field across the drive from the house. A calf called Barbara seemed far more sullen than her cheery namesake, and adult cows lounged in the pasture. Barbara’s special pet was Babe the lamb, while Nanny the goat was attached to John. Appropriately enough, the basset hound was Floppy, and the parrot went by the imposing name of Don Alfonso. There also were flowers in abundance, some cascading over the stone wall by the driveway.

The eighteenth-century house boasted fourteen rooms, and various wings sprawled in all compass directions. A small porch framed the entry way off the road, while the railing of a grand porch extended much of the length of a side. At the opposite end, a curved balcony extended from the master bedroom on the second floor, connecting a pair of doors and encircling the broad chimney. The rear wing contained two small bedrooms for servants, and four other large bedrooms completed the second floor. The dining room opened on the side porch with a splendid view of broad lawns well planted and shaded by magnificent old trees. The living room possessed what a real estate agent called “an exceptionally fine old mantelpiece.”⁹¹⁰

A short distance behind the main house was a four-room guest house, which Bill and John appropriated as their residence. It had a porch with railing, and the back windows opened on a pasture. They soon found that they could attract their horses Beauty and Tony to the window by whistling, and in the mornings they would ride around bareback in their pajamas.

Will read to his mother from Venetian Sermons by Alexander Robertson, a Scotsman who had taken up residence in Venice and had become a supporter of Mussolini. Robertson had been a friend of John Sinclair, and Will had visited him during his trip to Italy in 1923. Four years later, Will had taken June to meet this white-bearded, merry old man, whose cultural erudition and pleasant manner belied his fascist sympathies and his rapid opposition to the papacy.⁹¹¹ Venetian Sermons was a series of essays based on the metaphor that the glorious city built on marshes was like the character of a Christian. Lucy strained to hear as her son shouted Robertson’s words into her listening tube.⁹¹² Lucy remained twenty weeks at Bethel, Connecticut. She dictated letters to missionary friends at home and abroad, received several groups of visitors from the Mission Society, and took an auto ride every few days. Then near the end of October she announced her desire to return to New York. On Halloween day, Will stood nervously on the sidewalk in front of Thirty-Four Gramercy, waiting for the car to bring his mother. His mentor and Lucy's friend, Dr. Eliza Mosher, had just died from complications from a broken leg, despite his best treatment, and he was not in a confident mood.⁹¹³ Concerned his mother might not survive the trip, he was relieved when she arrived and he could take her up the elevator to her apartment.

On the evening of Friday, November 18, 1928, sensing her precarious health, Will spoke comforting words to Lucy: “Mother, as I have often said before, you are so unselfish to stay with us when you know that just over the hilltop is a wonderful home with joys unspeakable. When you can no longer be the personification of unselfishness, and must think of yourself, then we will try to forget our temporary loss, which is only seeming separation, in your being well and strong and happy, and free from all these encumbrances accumulated by time and your wonderful service for the Master.”

He said he was going up to Bethel the next day to close the country home for the winter and order some things that would make it even better the next summer. Will asked Lucy if that was what she wished. “Yes,” she answered. “I want Bethel.”

Her Bible was always near, although others would have to read her the verses, and a poem printed on its pink silk bookmark spoke clearly for her: “The very dimness of my sight makes me secure; for groping in my misty way, I feel His hand — I hear Him say, ‘My help is sure.’”⁹¹⁴
Farewells
That weekend, Lucy endured a new bout with pneumonia. Perhaps she was one of New York’s first victims of the great influenza epidemic that fairly exploded across the city the next month, the worst flu since the great pandemic of a decade before.⁹¹⁵ This particular influenza struck the elderly with unusual lethality, and in the early morning of Monday, November 19, 1928, Lucy died. The Mission Society announced her passing,⁹¹⁶ and Will issued a press release, calling her “Civil War nurse, writer, and pioneer woman in the missionary and philanthropic fields.”⁹¹⁷ The New York Times called her an “author, social service worker and Civil War nurse.”⁹¹⁸ Over the following weeks, more than seventeen hundred letters of condolence arrived at Gramercy Park or the Mission Society.

At two o’clock in the afternoon of the second day, Lucy’s body lay in the front living room of the big apartment at Gramercy, as Brandtie and others from the Mission Society gathered for her memorial service. There was such a sickeningly sweet myriad of flowers, that for a long time her grandson, John, could not endure the scent of an assembly of blossoms. But Will called the funeral, “a service of triumph, of joy for her, of victory.” Burleigh put all his heart into singing “How Firm a Foundation,” “The King of Love my Shepherd is,” and “The Strife is O’er, the Battle Won.” The biblical text came from the first book of Samuel, chapter twenty, verse eighteen: “Then Jonathan said to David, To-morrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.”⁹¹⁹

A few hours before the funeral, Will dictated a letter to guide the preacher, quoting young John's reaction to the news of his grandmother's death: “Oh, daddy, how wonderful. Grandma is walking and talking and seeing and, perhaps singing, at this very minute. She is young again. How wonderful it is! How happy she is!”⁹²⁰ This vignette appeared in several religious magazines and a few small newspapers, including The Chautauquan Weekly and The Danbury Evening Times which included Bethel in its territory⁹²¹

But John recalled the episode somewhat differently. From the moment of his mother’s death, Will seemed drawn to her room, high above his own apartment. He would sit there in the dark, silent and alone, until John would come at June’s request to bring dad to dinner. Again and again, John led his morose father down the stairs. Finally, John asked why, if Will was convinced his mother was safe in heaven, did he mourn so deeply. At that moment, his father seemed to straighten up. Never again did Will brood in Lucy’s dark room, but still he would think of his mother constantly and wish she were with him.⁹²²

In the remaining years of his own life, Will continued to glorify his mother, giving free copies of her books to prominent people he met around the world. He prevailed upon Mission Society superintendent Reverend Alexander H. McKinney to write a saccharin biography of Lucy, in return for free medical care.⁹²³ He staged parties on his mother's birthday every year, inviting her surviving Mission Society colleagues.⁹²⁴ Ida Brandt would be there, along with Lydia Tealdo and one or two dozen younger missionaries.⁹²⁵ One April, McKinney presided over the planting of a memorial Norway maple tree in the park, just opposite the entrance to Thirty-Four Gramercy, where Lucy had lived her three final decades.⁹²⁶ The next year, Will presented a portrait of his mother to the Rhode Island temperance union that she had helped to create sixty years earlier.⁹²⁷ He carefully preserved the box containing her medical records, as if he still could not realize she had died.⁹²⁸

When Will faced his own death in 1947, his spiritual guide was Rev. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, advocate of the power of positive thinking.⁹²⁹ Peale believed that the philosophy he shared with his medical friend “enables people to gain great victories over that harshest of all realities.” He wrote that Dr. Bainbridge was “a big, aggressive man, strong and with boundless energy.” But age and infirmity had brought him near to death, and none of his skill or science could save him. His son, Bill, in perhaps the most agonizing duty of his life, carried heavy tanks of oxygen out to Bethel on the train from New York, to prolong his father’s life. But the end neared. According to Peale, the faith of this “great scientist and great physician” remained firm until the last, as did that of his wife. They did not discuss the approach of death until the very day he died. Expressing his last professional judgment, he said, “I might not get well.”

June replied, “O that I might go with you on this last journey as I have on so many of the others! If you now get over to the other country ahead of me, wait around for me, will you?”

His voice had been weak, and consciousness was fading from him, but in a suddenly strong voice he spoke his last words, “I’ll be waiting for you. I’ll be there.”⁹³⁰

Analysis
Humans need to endure the costs that cannot be avoided, yet vigorously pursue the rewards taht can be obtained. Religious compensators discourage many people from wasting their energymin attempting the impossible. Over time, successful religious traditions develop great wisdom, based on the life experiences of generations of members, concerning which rewards should be sought in this world, and which in the world beyond. The pattern of compensators offered to members provides information that guides the individual to invest energy in lines of action that will tend to be profitable in the long run, rather than in lines of action that are not profitable or where short-term profit is outweighed by long-term loss.

The network of individuals that constitutes a congregation, and the network of organization that incorporates the congregation in the larger society, provide the member with many varied exchange partners. In these networks, a person finds a job, a spouse, perhaps even a doctor. The social relationships that form the network can be activated in many ways for the exchange of different kinds of reward. Most interesting for the sociology of religion, are relations between clergy and laity, or more broadly between those who represent a religious organization in its exchanges with ordinary members and non-members.

Religious professionals, like William and Lucy, provide a mixture of compensators and rewards, consistent with the general compensators that underlie their religious tradition. Chief among these is religious comfort, rooted in a sacred ideology that justifies hope and in the fundamental emotional communication of human feeling. The pure rewards provided by religion include information, valuable exchange partners and material benefits. The positive emotions provided by religion could also be called rewards, but they are inextricably bound into compensators, because religious ideology makes it possible to have the feelings.

For example, a minister can channel God's love, allowing the recipient to feel greatly loved despite the fact that the minister has little time to spare and devotes most of his or her own personal love to other people. In a way, religious emotion can be explained through the parable of the loaves and the fishes. Faith overcomes the objective scarcity of positive emotions, and belief in a loving God amplifies the limited amount of love that exists so that all can share in it. A merciful God considers every person to be a potentially valuable exchange partner, even those that no human values.

William sought to channel God's wisdom, but without love he failed. He claimed to understand missionary work even better than the missionaries themselves. Thus he fell prey to the occupational disease of social scientists: the hubris to think that our vast intellects and refined methodologies allow us to comprehend life better than ordinary people do. William competed with the missionaries, who had invested fare more than he in ministerial work, and he arrogantly believed that his erudition would allow him to triumph.

Lucy, in contrast, gave herself to others. The Mission Society was a cooperative enterprise, supported by several congregations of two denominations, possessing enduring exchange relations with other organizations. The Baptist Church was not a propitious environment in which to bcome a valued exchange partner through intellectual endeavors. The New York City Mission Society was a good environment in which to succeed through the strategy of benevolent giving.

Ironically, William ignored the message of his last published book, Self-Giving. Lucy, however, embodied it, and she was amply rewarded for her life of service. Her religious connections provided a livlihood and restored her dignity, after her husband's exchange strategy failed.

Their son took on the difficult task of living the strategies of both of his parents. Medicine was a vocation of service, yet during the period of Will's career it was also a science in which an individual doctor could hope to make significant scientific discoveries. In his own mind, as well as in his publicity, Will exaggerated the medical advances he intorduced, but on balance he was among the very most competent men in his profession. His cancer book was a success and proved that he could succeed where his father had failed. He became prosperous, but not wealthy, and a major part of his life's bargain was the large fraction of his time devoted to charity cases.

In the end, though, science inevitably fails. Like all the beloved relatives for whom Lucy had grieved, she, too, died, despite the best medical care of her era. Will, who had given his mother so much, was unable to extend her life even one day beyond November 19, 1928. So used to giving clients the reward of good medical care, and substituting religious compensators when he could not, Will was at first unable to accept religious compensators himself in the days after Lucy's death. Professional that he was, he knew all the techniques of secondary compensation, but primary compensation eluded him. Surrounded by swarms of effective clergy and indoctrinated by decades of religious observance, still when he faced his mother's death, grief struck him down.

The words of his young son, John, reminded Will not of his faith but of his obligation to have faith. From the moment the child spoke, Will reserved his doubts for himself, and acted the role of confident believer. He continued to serve his mother's memory as he had served her during life. Only though confidence could he serve his patients and lead his family. Unlike his father, Will did fulfill his obligations. We can doubt whether God actually provides the rewards promised by religious compensators. Some human beings, the weakest of God's creatures, do keep their promises.

1In addition to specific sources cited below, this chapter draws upon two unpublished manuscripts by Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, describing her childhood and parents, the first two chapters of her book Yesterdays (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), and sections of Ancestry of William Seaman Bainbridge by Louis Effingham De Forest (Oxford: The Scrivener Press, 1950). Cleveland population statistics are given by James Harrison Kennedy, A History of the City of Cleveland (Cleveland: Imperial, 1896), p. 498. The amazing flights of passenger pigeons are attested by William Ganson Rose, Cleveland: The Making of a City (Cleveland: World, 1950), pp. 184-188; E. V. McLoughlin (ed.), The Book of Knowledge: The Children’s Encyclopedia (New York: Grolier, 1950), pp. 4282-4288.

2Lillian E. Foster, introduction that was not included in Lucy’s autobiography, quoted by A. H. McKinney, Triumphant Christianity: The Life and Work of Lucy Seaman Bainbridge (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1932), p.198.

3Letter by W. L. Seaman, dated 1911, in The Seaman Family in America by Mary Thomas Seaman (New York, Tobias A. Wright, 1928) pp. 280-281; Henry E. Sigerist, “The Early Medical History of Saratoga Springs,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, May 1943, Volume 13, number 5, pp. 540-584.

4“Seaman, Cleora Augusta” in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White, 1933), v. XXIII, p. 159; Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “One of the Pioneer Women in Medicine,” The Medical Woman’s Journal, v. 28 (March 1921) 3:75-79.

5Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

6James Harrison Kennedy, A History of the City of Cleveland (Cleveland: Imperial, 1896), p. 498.

7Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, untilled manuscript about her childhood, about 1893.

8Mrs. W. A. Ingham, Women of Cleveland and Their Work (Cleveland, W. A. Ingham, 1893), p. 66.

9Maurice Joblin, Cleveland, Past and Present: Its Representative Men (Cleveland, Joblin, 1869), pp. 363-365.

10B. F. Rouse, “The Early History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, O.,” in History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland: J. B. Savange, 1883), p. 17.

11Edmund H. Chapman, Cleveland: Village to Metropolis (Cleveland: Western Reserve Historical Society, 1964), p. 76.

12B. F. Rouse, “The Early History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, O.,” in History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland: J. B. Savange, 1883), p. 26.

13B. F. Rouse, “The Early History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, O.,” in History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland: J. B. Savange, 1883), p. 27.

14“Baptist Anniversary,” The Cleveland Leader, February 19, 1883.

15James M. Hoyt, “Deacons of the First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio,” in History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland: J. B. Savange, 1883), p. 59.

16Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

17Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

18Mrs. S. W. Adams, “The Women of the Church,” in History of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland, Ohio (Cleveland: J. B. Savange, 1883), p. 67.

19Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

20Cleveland Herald, January 26, 1849, p. 4.

21Cleveland Herald, April 8, 1845, p. 2.

22reference to 1850 census report - I took this figure first from William C. Hunt (ed.), Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1920, Volume I: Population (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1921), p. 85.

231850 U.S. census manuscript schedules, Cleveland, Ohio, Ward 3, household 1700/1845; By the time the information get to the census office in Washington, some of it became garbled. Census takers were paid little, and they had to go personally from door to door, finding at least one competent person in each household to answer their questions. Completing the form did not end their labors, because they had to produce two longhand copies of all the census schedules, one for the state archives and one for the federal government. Invariably these were filled with mistakes, often different errors in the state and federal copies. Cleora’s name was altered to Clara, and her birthplace was moved to Ohio, while John’s was placed in Vermont where actually Cleora had been born, the result of getting a string of birthplaces shifted up one line on the form.

24Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

25Mrs. W. A. Ingham, Women of Cleveland and Their Work (Cleveland, W. A. Ingham, 1893), pp. 112.

26Cleveland Daily True Democrat, March 11, 1851, p. 2.

271850 U.S. census manuscript schedules, Cleveland, Ohio, Ward 3, household 1701/1846; 1860 U.S. census manuscript schedules, Cleveland, Ohio, Ward 3, household 45/50.

28William Ganson Rose, Cleveland: The Making of a City (Cleveland: World, 1950), pp. 255; Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, Yesterdays (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), p. 15; 1860 U.S. census manuscript schedules, Cleveland, Ohio, Ward 3, household 40/45.

29Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, Yesterdays (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), p. 16.

30Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, Yesterdays (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), p. 16.

31Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “A Remembrance of my Father and Mother, John Seaman and Cleora August Stevens Seaman,” typescript undated but no earlier than 1915.

32Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, Yesterdays (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1924), p. 17.

33Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “One of the Pioneer Women in Medicine,” Medical Woman’s Journal v. 28 (March 1921), n. 3, pp. 76; Eve Keleher rewrote this essay as “City’s First Woman Doctor Fought Heavy Odds,” improving it not at all, for a Cleveland newspaper, probably Sunday, October 23, 1932.

34Lucy Seaman Bainbridge, “One of the Pioneer Women in Medicine,”