“I dare say I could write a book on my early struggles with my seven children, and a miner’s home to contend with; and many a week my husband has not had a penny of wages to bring home, besides the experience of three big strikes and many small ones. I may say we were married 19 years before we lost one, and then I lost my baby, a grand little girl of two. Then, a year and a half after, I lost a fine lad of 14 in the fever hospital, of scarlet fever and diphtheria. Two years after that we lost a girl of 12 from tubercular disease of the kidneys from cow’s milk…Such a clever child she was. So you will see we have had our troubles”.