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 ...

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THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

no little work for herself by entertaining them and trying to
make her children happy. She gave us our stints of work,
simple little duties of housekeeping, like dish-washing and
dusting when we were young, increasing them as we became
older Nor did any one of her daughters escape being well
taught in needle-work, except myself. It was not her fault,
however, that I grew up ignorant of this feminine accomplishment.
My home was eminently and severely religious. We
began the day with prayer and Bible reading. Every child
in the family from the age of seven was expected to read
the Bible through once a year, according to a plan marked
out by my father I observed this custom until I was
twenty-three years of age, so that the good book has become
ingrained in my memory, a part of my very self. To this day
I am saluted in my home as " The Family Concordance." A
blessing was asked upon each meal of which we partook, all
standing, and thanks were returned after eating. The day
was closed with prayer and Bible reading and the children
were then put through a rigorous course of self-examination
concerning their use of the day, which was conducted by my
father. This was not the best sleeping potion for a serious
and thoughtful child like myself, and sometimes long after the
whole household was steeped in slumber, I was lying awake
mourning and weeping over the events of the day in which
I had participated, and which loomed up before me after
the evening's investigation as heinous sins against God.
I was the fourth in a family of six children, two boys
and four girls, and was born on Salem street, at the North
End of Boston, on the 19th of December, 1820. Our house
was located three or four doors below the Old North Church,
on the same side of the street. Adjoining was the residence
of Noah Lincoln, with its handsome grounds at the rear, or,