Mary Baker Eddy - Early Marriages

Early Marriages

On December 10, 1843, she married George Washington Glover. He died of yellow fever on June 27, 1844, a little over two months before the birth of their only child, George Washington Glover. After her husband's death, Mary Baker Glover freed her husband's slaves, unwilling to accept for herself the price of a human life. As a single mother of poor health, Mrs. Glover wrote some political pieces for the New Hampshire Patriot. She also worked as a substitute teacher in the New Hampshire Conference Seminary. Her success there led to her briefly opening an experimental school which was an early attempt to introduce kindergarten methods (love instead of harshness for discipline; interest instead of compulsion to impart knowledge), but this, like other similar attempts at this time was not accepted and soon closed. The social climate of the times made it very difficult for a widowed woman to earn money.

Her mother died in November 1849 and about a year later, her father remarried Elizabeth Patterson Duncan. Mary Baker Glover continued to have poor health and her son was put into the care of neighbors by her father and stepmother. Mary married Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, in 1853 hoping he would adopt the young boy, and Daniel Patterson signed papers to that effect on their wedding day. However, he never followed through on his promise. Mary was often bed-ridden during this period. Of her sisters who were able to help her in the care of her rambunctious child, none really did, beyond short periods. Her mother had passed on and her father had remarried a woman who did not welcome either Mary or her child. A neighbor couple with a small farm and no children took up the care of the boy for a fee, during times Mary was confined to her bed. When this couple, who found the boy useful in the farm labor, intended to move out to the Prairie territories, without her knowing, some of Mary's family arranged that the couple should take the child along with money given them by her father. Mary's symptoms worsened and plunged her into a deep depression. The failure of Patterson to make good on his promises of reunification with her now far-distant son plunged her into deep despair. Her acute desire to recover her health led her to seek healing in the various systems fashionable of the period. She was ready to try anything to bring relief to her sufferings.

Daniel Patterson chased after other women while married to Mary. He ran into financial difficulty and mortgaged Mary's furniture, jewelry, and books, but was still unable to keep current on their property in Groton, New Hampshire, and was eventually forced to vacate. Daniel intended to leave Groton and Mary's sister, Abigail, removed her from her Groton home to Rumney, six miles distant, in a carriage with her blind servant following on foot.