Tea at Trianon: The Unsinkable Margaret Brown

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, January 15, 2017

The Unsinkable Margaret Brown

From National Catholic Register:

Most people know Molly Brown (1867-1932) was an RMS Titanic survivor but her unsinkability is only a small achievement as achievements go. Molly was as devout a Catholic as they come, and not only did her Faith serve her well in life but she served her Faith even better. Born Margaret Tobin in Hannibal, Missouri, the daughter of poor but devout Irish immigrant farmers, she was one of eight children in a large, rambling, Catholic family. She grew up in a two-room cottage a few blocks from the Mississippi River and attended an elementary school operated by her aunt, Mary O'Leary. As a teenager, she worked at Garth's Tobacco Company in Hannibal stripping tobacco leaves.

At age 18, Margaret relocated to Leadville, Colorado with several siblings and other family members where they shared a two-room log cabin and established a blacksmith shop. Margaret's brother Daniel Tobin, worked in the mines and advanced to become a successful mine promoter. Margaret went to work for Daniels and Fisher Mercantile department store in Leadville in the Carpets and Draperies Department. She soon met her soon to become husband, James Joseph "J.J." Brown (1854–1922)―an enterprising, self-educated son of Irish Catholic immigrants. (Read more.)