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A Merry Heart
From babyhood, she grew a merry heart, keyed to the sounds of laughter through the hospitable halls of the home, whose first quarter century weathered Sherman’s burning of Columbia and the years of Reconstruction which taught that poverty need not breed despair.
From childhood, she built a firm faith centered through the family’s religion-centered life that began each day with prayers and hymns in the parlor of the home.
And now, every Sunday at twilight, there is hymn-singing for Miss Ginny, her nurse and the niece who lives with her, Mrs. A. Wadley Kirkland. She still remembers the words, too, but she personalizes them on occasion: “God will take care of ME,” she sang just last Sunday!
In girlhood, she developed a keen mind and a searching spirit sparked by talk of education from the cultured and distinguished gentlemen — judges, lawyers, doctors, preachers — who were frequent guests in the house and who joined Col. McMaster in the battle to bring about public schools and education for the masses.
(Chairman of Columbia’s first Board of School Commissioners, Col. McMaster was called the “Father of Columbia Schools,” and the old McMaster School, now McMaster College of the University of South Carolina, was named for him.)
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Here’s a photo of Col. Fitz William McMaster, taken sometime in the late 1800s:
And here’s a photo of Gin-Gin, taken in 1958 when she was 91 years old:
Part 3 will be posted soon!
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