The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

MY FATHER AND MOTHER.

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trious habits, honest, and God-fearing." My father was the
sixth in a family of eleven children, of whom five were
boys, and all of whom received Bible names,-Paul, Silas,
Timothy, Moses, and Benjamin. I have visited the old farm
on which he was born, and learned much of his early history, and the traditions of his family. He was tall and
large physically, prodigiously strong and massive in his
young manhood, a kind of blonde giant. The old people
who were cotemporary with him all told the same story.
He was very thoughtful and devout in his early life, studious and religious, devoted to his parents, and to his mother
especially, "set in his way," a great talker, fluent in speech,
and talking with much power. Those were his traits
through life.
My mother, Zebiah Vose Ashton, born in Boston, was
of direct English descent, her father having been born in
London, England, where most of her kindred have since
resided. He always subscribed himself "Captain Nathaniel
Ashton, London, England,"- a sailor in the East India service, not a soldier. He was intensely English and bristled
with family pride and loyalty to the Church of England.
This did not prevent his marrying a Boston woman, my
grandmother, who must have been very comely in her
youth, as she was a very handsome woman in her old age.
She could not be induced to forsake her native city, and so
it happened that my mother also was born in Boston. The
law on both sides of the water gave my grandfather the
right to compel my grandmother to reside in England as
he desired; but he never attempted such compulsion, nor
would he have succeeded if he had, for his wife was a
woman with a mind of her own, and, young or old, carried
her points. So my grandfather contented himself until late
in life with vibrating between the old world and the new,