Three (Henry, Margaret, Robert) of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s seven children had no children. Daniel and Fredericka had a daughter Florence; Gerrit and Augusta adopted a daughter Hazel; Theodore and Marguerite had two daughters, a son, and a baby who died;
Nora, ECS, Harriot, 1888. Nora referred to ECS as “her Queenmother” and embraced her as the “guide and philosopher” who taught her “the facts of life,” including the “history of woman and of her long subjection.”
Harriot had two daughters Nora and Helen, who died at age 4.
Her first grandchild Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jr, who would be known as “Lizette or Lisette, was born on May 3, 1882, to Theodore and Marguerite Berry Stanton, who lived in France. On that day, an exuberant ECS wrote a letter to her “little namesake.” Here are excerpts from her letter:
“My precious baby, You have no idea what a commotion the announcement that “Elizabeth Cady Stanton” had planted her little foot on French soil created in our
household this morning. ‘Vive Elizabeth’ rang from garret to celler. . . . .we are all so delighted that you belong to the superior sex. . . . now you must help to make the women grand & worthy . . . . I shall use my influence with your mother to see that you have a free & happy life, that you are always tenderly treated. . . . How many things you will have to see & learn in this great world. I laugh to think how busy those little hands will be when you commence your investigations of all material things.. . . . There will be no end to all the nice chats we shall have, when we once put our heads together. . . . with love & kisses from your happy grandmother.”
ECS was very musical. She loved to dance, play the guitar and the piano. In her letter she told ECS, Jr. that she will “sing you many songs from the opera of lullaby” and included the fourth stanza from a popular children’s poem “Do You Guess It is I?” by Eliza Lee Follen: “I suppose/you have ten fingers & toes,/two eyes a mouth, ears & a nose,/& spend most of your time in repose.” (Reminds me of Mem Fox’s wonderful picture book Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes) Here’s a link to info about Follen, scroll down to find this poem. http://allpoetry.com/Eliza-Lee-Follen
The grown-up Nora: The first woman to graduate from Cornell University with a degree in civil engineering.
Sources: Colman, Penny. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: A Friendship That Change the World. (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), p. 210. Griffith, Elisabeth. In Her Own Right: The Life of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984) Appendix B, pp. 228-229. Gordon, Ann D. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony, vol. IV. (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006). pp. 164-165.
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