11
.
. . . . THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
SCHOOL OF music.
THE C0U33UL
o
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h
X
SSf
"Would call the attention of all who desire a musical education to the unequalled facilities offered at this school.
XTIIIAXI KIMBAII, Director.
&m
MARY REYNOLDS.
This Btory of Mary Reynolds' was
narrated in Harper's Magazine, (No. 120
May 1860) by the Reverend William S.
Plumer, D. D., from data partly sup
plied by relatives and also by memo
randa contributed by the subject her
self. Towards the close of the last century,
William Reynolds, with his family, emi
grated from England to America. A
member of the Baptist denomination,
he was an intimate friend of Robert
Hall and other distinguished "Dis
senters." Leaving his family in New
York, he took his son John, then a lad
-of fourteen years, and located his home
in "the forest primeval." It was in
Venango County, in Western Pennsyl
vania, between Franklin and Titusville
which latter place was than only a
settlement made by Jonathan Titue,
Mr. Reynolds' nearest neighbor. Hav
ing, with the assistance of his son, built
a log cabin, Reynolds left the lad to
take care of it while he returned to
3?ew York to bring the remainder of
the family. In four months they were
re-united in their western home. Of
this family was a daughter, Mary Rey
nolds, .born in England and a child
when brought to America. There was
nothing remarkable about her child
hood and youth. She possessed an ex
cellent capacity and enjoyed fair op
portunities to acquire knowledge. Mr.
Reynolds' home was for years a "stop
ping place" for the pioneer missionaries
of what was then the "Far West," so
that the family had the advantage, not
enjoyed by other frontier families, of
associating with education and culture
and they seem to have profited thereby.
Mary, while not brilliant, seems to have
been endowed with an uncommonly
well-balanced mind. She became sub
ject to "fits" when she was eighteen
years old, though; no reliable informa-
tion as to their cause or character is
given.
In 1811, when Mary was about nine
teen years of age, she had an attack of
unusual severity. She had taken a
book, one Sunday in the spring, and
Had gone into the field at some distance
from the house that she might read in
quiet. She was found lying insensible
and, being restored to consciousness,
was blind and deaf for five or six weeks.
When she recovered sight and hearing
and was almost restored to her former
health, about three months after this
attack, came the first indication of
double consciousness. She was found
one morning, long after her usual hour
for rising, in a profound (dumber, from
which she awoke after some hours.
In that Bleep she lost all recollection
of her former life. She knew neither
father, mother nor relatives. All her
acquired education had passed from
her and her knowledge of common,
everyday things and of language was
precisely that of a new-born infant.
The only difference between her con
dition and that of a babe was that she
had the faculty of acquiring knowledge
possessed by a mature person and thus
rapidly learned the lore of the world
into whioh she had been so strangely
re-born.
After remaining in this infantile con
dition for five weekB, she awoke one
morning in her natural state, without
the slightest recollection of the lapse
into juvenility, and she took up life at
the precise point where she had left it
when she fell into that slumber from
which she had awoke to the new life.
The change of the eeaton and the dif
ference that the interval of five weeks
had made in the home were wonderful
to her, as having occurred in one night.
After the lapse of a few weeks there
was a recurrence of the profound slum
ber and an awakening to the infantile
life which she thereupon resumed, her
knowledge being limited to what she
had acquired during the past five weeks'
"term" of the new life.
These alternations from one state to
the other continued for fifteen or six
teen years, and only ceased finally when
she had attained the age of thirty-five
or thirty-six years, leaving her per
manently in "her second state," in
which she remained without change for
the last quarter of a century of her life.
In 1836 Mies Reynolds, who was then
housekeeper for her nephew, the Rev
erend John V. Reynolds, D. D., at his
request, made a written statement of
some of the facts of her remarkable ex
perience. As she was then permanent
ly established in "the second state,"
having no recollections of the incidents
of her normal state, she relied upon the
testimony of friends for the circum
stances concerning it She says:
"From the spring of 1811, when the
first change occurred, until within eight
or ten years, frequently changing from
my first to my second, and from my
second to my first state, I was more
than three-fourths of the time in my
second state. There was no regularity
sb to the length of time that one or the
other continued. Sometimes I remain
ed several months, sometimes only a few
weeks, or even days, in my second state;
but in no instance did I continue more
than twenty days in my first state.
The transitions from-one to the other
always took place during sleep. In
passing from my second to my first
Btate nothing special was noticeable in
the character of my Bleep. But in pass
ing from my first to my second state my
sleep was so profound that no one could
wake me, and it not unfrequently con
tinued eighteen or twenty hours.
"Whatever knowledge I acquired in
my second state became familiar to me
in that Btate, and I gained such pro
ficiency that I became acquainted with
things, and was, in general, as intelli
gent in that as in my first state.
"My mental sufferings in the near
prospect of the transition from either
Btate to the other, but particularly from
the first to the second (for I commonly
bad a presentiment of the change for a
short time before it took place) were
very great, for I feared I might never
revert eo as to know again in this world,
as I then knew them, those wno were
dear to me- My feelings, in this re
spect, were not unlike those of one
1
yOU WILL ILWlYS FIND
The best of everything- in the grocery line at the
Good Luck Grocery.
T TV- filTT'r: 1107 O street.
-m ---"-e kjb-v-m. -m. m T3lOfl
about to be separated from loved onts
by death. During the earlier stages of
my disease I had no idea- while in' my
second state, of employing my time in
anything useful. I cared for nothing
but to ramble about, and never tired of
walking tnrough tne fields and woods.
1 ate and slept very little. Sometimes,
for two or three consecutive days and
nights I would neither eat nor sleep. 1
would often conceive prejudices, with
out cause, against my best friends.
Those feelings, however, .began grad
ually to wear away, and eventually
quite disappeared."
Mary Reynolds' two live6 were thus
entirely separate and the intervention of
one or the other apparently made no
break in the continuity of either one.
The strangest feature of this metamor
phosis was that in her normal or "first
state" she was quiet and sedate and
pensive almost to melancholy, with an
intellect sound though rather slow and
singularly destitute of the imaginative
faculty, while in the abnormal or second
state, she was gar and cheerful, extrava
gantly fond of society, fun and practical
jokes, with a lively fancy and a strong
propensity for rhyming. Her hand
writing was entirely different in the one
state from that of the other. In her nor
mal condition Miss Reynold? regarded
her dual personality with dread, as a
severe affliction of Providence and epec
ially, as she said, because it might lead
her to forget her parents and loved ones.
Yet in the abnormal state she dreaded
the return of the normal condition or
personality for quite different reasons.
She looked upon it as passing from a
bright and joyous into a dull and stupid
phase of life!
She then became acquainted with
members of the family in both person
alities and was especially fond of her
brother John, who resided at Meadville
some thirty miles from her home in
Venango County. On one occasion,
while in her "second state," she rode to
Meadville on horseback and visited at
the home of a Mrs. Kennedy where she
became a guest for several weeks. A
mong other friendships there she made
one with a Miss Nancy Dewey and they
occupied the same bedroom. One night
they agreed to play a practical joke on
John Reynolds, who was boarding at
the same house, but when Mary awoke
she had changed to her natural, state.
She, of course, found herself sleeping
with a total stranger, in a strange house
and in a town she had never before
Flrt Pub. Sept. 81.
In the district court of Lancaster county, Ne
braska. Herbsrt B. Sawyer,
vs.
Rufus E. Wedge ami Mildred J. Wedge, hii
wife, Charles R. Kidwell and Amanda An
derson, formerly Amanda Kidwell, wife of
Cbarlea R. Kidwell, Levi Wilbelm. and AI
Tin Nelson, and Martha A. Nelson, hU wife.
Rufus E. Wedge and Mildred J. Wedge, bia
wife, Charles R. Kidwell and Levi Wilbelm will
take notice that on the '3rd day of August. 1SHW,
Herbert R. Sawyer, plaintiff herein. tiled Ilia
petition in the District Court of Lancaster
county, Nebraska, against said defendants, tbo
object and prayer of which is to foreclose a
certain mortgage executed by the defendants
Rufus E. Wedge and Mildred J. Wedge to one,
James E. Seeley upon lots 13 and II in block:;
of W. U. Irrine's second addition to the city of
Lincoln, located on the north one-half (n K ,
of the southwest quarter (s w !i. of the south
west quarter iswK'oI section eighteen (18 .
tbwnsbip ten (10), in range seren 1 7), east, to
secure the payment of a certain promissory
note dated September t, Imuo, for the sum of
seren hundred tJTUO.OO) dollars, with interest
at seren per cent per annum and dne and pay
able on the first day of October. 1&S, and that
there is now dne uion said note and mortgage
the sum of twelre hundred IICUO.U)) dollars,
that said note and mortgage has been duly
assigned and is now owned by the plaintiff.
Plaintiff further prays in his petition that a
mortgage executed by Charles K. Kidwell and
Amanda Kidwell to the said Rufus E. Wedge,
and by the said Rufus E. Wedge assigned to
Leri Wilhelm for the sum of 1 160.00, giren Feb
ruary 16, 1S93, be declared a subsequent and in.
ferior lien to that of the plaintiff.
Plaintff further prays for a decree that the
defendants be required to pay this" said mort
gage of $1200.00 and that said premises may be
sold to satisfy the amount found due. You and
each of you aro required to answer said peti
tion on or before Monday, the Sth day of Octo
ber 1600.
Dated August 29. 1900.
Hebuekt B. Sawyek. Plaintiff.
By A. W. Field, his Attorney.
J
H. W. BROWN
Druggist and
Bookseller.
Wr-tltlns1
Fine Stationery
and
Calling Cards
127 So.Bleventh Street.
PHONE 88
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