Ohio History Journal

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THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH

THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE BIRTH

OF RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES AT

SPIEGEL GROVE, FREMONT, OHIO

 

BY LUCY ELLIOT KEELER

 

"Of which I was a great part," is the classic motto

which for almost twenty centuries hero after hero has

proudly taken to himself. President Hayes would smil-

ingly have passed it by. Perhaps no other phrase exists,

however, which so effectively describes the pervasion of

his personality through all the commemorative events

and the scene in which they were staged, at Fremont,

Ohio, October 4, 1922, the centenary of his birth.

Spiegel Grove, the home to which he was devotedly

attached, and which he had known intimately from boy-

hood, was never fairer than on that serene autumnal

day, basking under the bluest of blue skies. Every one

of those great trees his hands had touched; each fair

vista had delighted him; the clearings in the dense forest,

letting in the sunlight, had been planned and executed by

him; on many of the finest trees he had bestowed the

names of his comrades; spot after spot he had enriched

with gathered lore; the homestead which he had re-

shaped to his family life, the rooms he had lived and

worked in and in which he had been the generous, de-

lightful host; the porches and paths he had trod; the

national colors under which he had fought and bled and

served; the secluded Knoll where his mortal remains lie

beside those of his beloved wife; the numberless books

he had gathered and studied; the reunion again of all

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