A Remarkable Person Born on Christmas 200 Years Ago

Most of us are aware of Clara Barton as the pioneering Red Cross originator in America. Not as many know about her remarkable educational crusade here in our own state of New Jersey. In Bordentown there is a charming one-room school where Clara Barton taught as a young woman still in her teens. In those days education was often by tuition subscription. Families that could afford it would hire a tutor, and in some communities, families with means would pool their money and hire a tutor for children whose parents had subscribed to be taught in a one-room school. The poor children were left illiterate to continue on the path of their poor parents as hired out field hands, servants and people condmmned to eak out lives of poverty.

When Clara Barton was hired to teach in the one-room school in Bordentown, she strove to convince the townspeople that it was in everyone's interest to see to it that ALL the children were educated and literate. The enrollment rose over a few years from a handful of well-to-do children to 500 local children. Clara Barton had been so successful that the town hired a man to become her supervisor! Needless to say this was both shocking and insulting and Clara Barton was hurt. She left to become a clerk in Washington D.C., a battlefield nurse in the Civil War, and to originate not only the Red Cross, but a beaurocratic department to collect the names of the fallen soldiers so their families could be notified of the deaths of their sons. Before that office was developed by Clara Barton, families sewed the names of their sons into their clothing and depended on the kindness of survivors and strangers to notify them of the fat of their loved ones. Clara not only cleaned up and organized the field hospitals, she made sure the families knew what happened to their boys both in the hospital and in the battlefield.

Clara Barton had see the Red Cross at work in Europe and she struggled mightily to get our own government to develop a version of it to aid the victims of disasters in our own country but the president at the time, R. Hayes, turned down her requests over and over. So, undaunted, Clara Barton developed her own Red Cross and called for donations to aid those who had suffered in the great fire of 1881 in Michigan. She was wildly successful and her effort was so popular, the Red Cross was established formally. Clara Barton was born on Christmas Day in 1821. Her formidable drive despite the ceaseless obstacles, her boundless compassion, and her civic devotion are truly astonishing and worthy of both respect and gratitude.

This year, I will be wishing Merry Christmas to Clara Barton in my heart and here on this blog! Thank heavens for citizens such as Clara Barton, a true hero!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and if you are looking for a place to visit, stop in at Bordentown and visit the little school where it all began for Clara Barton, here in our own state of New Jersey! Jo Ann

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