65th

On a “bright sunny day”–November 12, 1880, Elizabeth Cady Stanton started to keep a diary. She began with: “Today, I am sixty-five years old.” In my forthcoming book, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship that Changed the World, I described how she spent the day in her house, in Tenafly, New Jersey, which is about three miles from where I live (Susan is Susan B. Anthony, Harriot through Kit are her seven children, Henry is her husband): Susan was away for several days, and her family was scattered–Harriot in France; Theodore in Germany; Maggie, Gat and Neil in Iowa; Bob away at college in New York; Kit and Henry were in New York City. Alone, she spent the day “writing letters and walking up and down the piazza.” “Dear Children,” she wrote, “This is my birthday. . . . Looking back through life, I feel that our troubles are fully compensate by our joys.” Today, also a “bright sunny day,” I am sixty-five years old!!!

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