An Indomitable Woman Friend: Five Dead Babies, Spiritualism & Reform
While she was the wife of a prosperous textile manufacturer, all her affluence and “privilege” did not save her first child, born in 1829, from an early death — or the next four after him: all five died, one after another, in infancy or shortly afterward.
As the fifth one faded, Chace penned a rhymed plea
“Oh! no, it cannot, cannot be;
My darling babe will live.
He must not go away from me,
He is the last of five. . . .
And, much and often have I prayed,
That so it might not be;
That in a little coffin laid
This one I ne’er might see.
“Oh! Father, spare him longer yet,
Our lonely home to cheer.
We’ve often said it was for this
That Thou hast sent him here.”
But it was not to be.