Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight

3 Breaking the Mold

3 Breaking the Mold “Fa r ew el l ! f a t h er, mo t h er, bro t h er s! I leave thee this pleasant September morning, 1854,to seek my Western home in Lyme, Ohio. My little group of loved ones are all in good health and spirits—five in number—the oldest, Theophilus, twelve years of age—the youngest, George Hastings, seventeen months—a nursing babe.”1 Thus, Elizabeth Packard described the family’s departure from their native Massachusetts. A decade later she could still recall in minute detail how she had dressed the children for travel. The older boys (Theo, Isaac, and Samuel) wore overcoats, caps, and gloves and each carried a carpetbag. Daughter Libby wore a “black velvet tunic, lined with dove-colored silke, and trimmed with mazarine blue fringe.” Baby George was dressed in a “little blue and white knit wrapper, with long, warm sleeves, and his claret merino cape [was] lined with light silk, and embroidered with scallops and knots, and tied with broad claret-colored ribbon strings.” The baby’s outfit was completed with a fringed “blue zephyr worsted,” mittens, and “black-silk velvet cap, with ear tabs of light-blue satin [and] rosettes, and lace border about the front.”2 The children were apparently the center of attention as the family left the train at Cleveland and boarded a steamboat bound for Sandusky City. Packard recalled with pleasure the remarks of the “gaily dressed ladies” regarding the children’s good conduct and fine clothes. She added proudly that she “had been the sole maker, not only of the clothes, but also of the style, or fashion, in which they were made.”3 Packard and her husband were striking in appearance as well. He, at age fifty-two, was tall and clean-shaven with wildly curly red hair. She, age thirtyeight , was a petite five-feet-one inch with dark brown hair and eyes. She added, with no trace of false modesty, “Almost any man would jump to help me at any time; for I was neatly and tastefully dressed . . . and I find the men generally like to wait upon good-looking and well-dressed ladies!”4 Theophilus Packard’s recollections of their journey to Ohio were also detailed . He recalled their date of departure (18September 1854) and carefully documented the logistics and costs of the trip, which included a stop to visit relatives in Lyons, New York. The cost of train fare for 7was $57.00 and freight for 6,735pounds of goods was $83.00. At the time his “whole property” was worth $2,700.5 In Lyme, Ohio, the Packards were greeted by members of their new Presbyterian congregation as well as by Theophilus’s sister Sybil and her husband, Abijah Dole, who resided there. Theophilus described the parsonage as “convenient ” and noted that the people of Lyme were pleasant and, perhaps more important, “generous.”6 The Packards enrolled their oldest son, Theo, at nearby Oberlin Collegiate Institute for the summer term.7 By the 1850s Oberlin was a center of revivalist zeal and Arminian “Perfectionism” under the leadership of firebrand preacher Charles Grandison Finney.8 Finney’s “new measures” for gaining converts scandalized orthodox Calvinists; thus, when young Theo apparently “professed to obtain a hope that he had become a Christian,” his father was unconvinced. He wrote that while Theo was moral, so far as he knew, he failed to “exhibit the marks and evidences . . . of being a real believer.” He then added with emphasis, “God of mercy! Save him from soul destroying Universalism.”9 It was apparently Elizabeth, however, who wanted to move on from Ohio. Theophilus recorded simply that his “wife was unwilling to stay there any longer.”10 In a later book she wrote that Lyme was too much like Shelburne for her liking.11 Thus, although the Lyme congregation offered him a permanent position, on 16 October 1855the family headed farther west to Iowa, where Theophilus became pastor of a Congregational church. Elizabeth enthused, “The farther I got from the East the better I liked it” and added, “When we got to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, we knew what it was to go West.”12 She was exhilarated by the change, and wrote: “Our New England habits have been broken up. Our mould in which we were cast has been broken up. We have had room for expansive growth. We were too conservative rut thinkers, there.”13 She quickly settled into her roles...