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Note: Name Birth Death Last Residence Last Benefit SSN Issued MARGARET IVES 10 Apr 1903 15 Jul 2000 (V) 20038 (Washington, District Of Columbia, DC) (none specified) 579-44-1193 District of Columbia
THE WASHINGTON POST
July 20, 2000; Page B5
Section: Metro
Psychologist Margaret Ives
Official at St. Elizabeths
Margaret Ives, 97, a retired director of psychological services at St. Elizabeths Hospital who became the executive officer of the American Board of Professional Psychologists, died July 15 at Hospice of Northern Virginia. She had dementia. She lived in Alexandria.
Dr. Ives was born in Detroit. She was a graduate of Vassar College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and received a doctorate in psychology from the University of Michigan.
She made her early career in Detroit in the Wayne County juvenile court system and at Henry Ford Hospital.
In 1943, She moved to the Washington area and joined the St. Elizabeths staff. She retired in 1972. She administered the American Board of Psychologists from 1977 to 1981.
Dr. Ives was a lecturer and adjunct professor of psychology at George Washington University from 1945 to 1970. She also was an advisor to the D.C. Mental Health Association.
Her honers included the Superior Service Award of the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Harold Hildreth Memorial Award of the Division of Psychologist[s] in Public Service of the American Psychological Association and the Distinguished Psychologist Award of the American Board of Forensic Psychology.
Dr. Ives was a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Council of Psychologists. She was a member of the D.C. and Virginia Psychological associations, the American Association of University Women, Common Cause and Mount Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria.
She leaves no survivors.
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LETTERS OF ELIZA SEAMAN LEGGETT TO HER GRANDSON AUGUSTUS WRIGHT IVES, 1888
...Continued from the Notes for Margaret's mother, Clare Chandler.
would give, the parents proposed to have her go to New York. As Grandfather John [Ferris, (1733-1814)] was leaving, the bright little grandmother ["My"anna Hunt Ferris, (c.1738-1809)] said, "Now, John, have care in selecting a boarding-place for our Anne, don`t let her have a home where there are young men, for thee knows my dear, she is too pretty, and the young men could not fail to be enticed. Be sure John to remember." No place except among Friends or Quakers could be thought of and making all due enquiry, grandfather John made arrangements for the beautiful Anne to take board at Willet Seaman`s [(1737-1807)]. Now at this same Willet Seaman`s there were six boys if not more, four daughters; but notwithstanding the agreement was made. Ah! Grandfather John! When the next day the wise little grandmother met her husband at the gate, and found out the state of the case, "Ah John," she said, "but did I not warn thee, there are many sons there." "Yes, My-anna, but if thee could see them thee would have no fear for Anne - a homlier set of boys thee never saw. Trust me, she never could take one. I saw them at dinner. Oh My-Anne, they were ordinary in the extreme." So the little beauty went to be taught accomplishments to make pincushions with flowers on them and a most elaborate needle-book
grew into a "sweet" thing under the dainty hands, such hands as my mother had, they had never been allowed to use a broom or lift a weight so delicate our grandmothers guarded well the complexions and forms of their daughters - no fire light must shine upon their face "take a screen my dear - Elijah don`t let thy sister lift that side of the table it will spoil the shape of her hand - don`t go out in the air without covering thy face dear, much weather hurts thy face." In March if there was snow on the ground our grandmother gathered demi johns of the medicated snow. So much soft water they said; enough would be done to last for the toilet until next the next March - dear old Grandma. "Well mother" I said one evening as I sat at her feet on a little bench, "Why did thee fall in love with such a homely man, for thee thinks so much of beauty?" She patted me on the face and said, "Why my dear, thy father was not such a very homely man, he had a nice shape to his face, dark soft black silky air, very pretty eyes, his mouth was not a bad mouth, neither was his nose a bad nose, oh no my dear, your father was not a bad looking man." Blessed mother, if she could have heard the tone of her voice and seen the look in her face, as the bright light of the fire softened all, in that "little while before ten" the "oh no my dear thy father was not a bad looking man." Another time I said, "Mother I wish I was handsome as my sister Marianne and Anne are, they are called so beautiful, no one calls me even pretty and I would like to be pretty." Then she looked at me awhile, always our little talks were before the lamps were lighted and before my brothers came home to tea as we sat by the fire. She took my chin in her hand and said, "Why Eliza thee has a pretty good nose - if it had been a little larger, it would not have been a bad nose." Then she would pull it down a little. "Thy eyes are good enough, if they were not set a little too far back, thy hair is nice enough, so too thy forehead is pretty fair, and if thee will try to keep thy mouth from drooping in the corners and always try to have a smile on thy face, thee would look very well." Oh, dear, then she added, "Thee looks very much like thy father my dear." Well, that satisfied me, for all through my life until this moment my father was my idol so I said, "That will make me happy, I wish I could know how he looked." "Very much like thy brother Willet." Now my brother Willet was not a bit good looking but I loved him dearly, and the elder brothers snubbed him, so that made me love him more dearly, so I had to accept the "not bad looking face," but I used to go to the glass and try to pinch my cheeks so as to get dimples to come, and when we went to parties and I went very young I would pinch my cheeks - oh dear again.
Well, the pretty Anna still boarded at Friend Willet Seaman`s, and worked at the lovely satin needle book and it grew so pretty, it was a dove color satin on the outside and lined with pink satin for Quakers loved color and where they dared - would put it in. There was a place for scissors, and bodkin [pointed instrument for making holes in cloth, or a needle] and oh, lots of little tiny pockets for all useful things and space for saving silk in skeens [skeins; coils of thread] - and the young Valentine delighted to watch Anne`s pretty fingers bring out the rose buds and forget me nots and trim it all with silver cord. It took the greater part of the winter evening after the lessons were learned - and always there were the admiring eyes, and heart too, to watch the progress, then it was finished. "Let me," said the young lover (yes I guess he was just that), "let me take it in my room a few
days, I like to look at it." I wonder if the pretty Anne blushed, my mother did blush so prettily, and if the pretty girl blushed, I wonder if it put the young Valentine`s bones out of joint - I guess so. In a few days came back the case all filled with the best sort of cutlery, scissors - two or three, one for cutting button holes - I remember one with gilded bows. Oh dear, I guess somebody, two somebodies sort of fell in love and nobody knows how but themselves (what`s the matter!!)
[My] Grandfather Willet was in a most flourishing business. It was easy enough to make money after the war was over. He left his farm in Westburg, that great farm where the first Captain John [(1615-b.1695) came to America with John Winthrop, 1630] and his eight sons and eight daughters had come to live - in 16__ - you see my father`s name was Valentine [(1770-1817)], his father Willet [(1737-1807)] - his father Samuel [(1715-b.1781)] and he was one of the eight sons if I have it right - I think I have - of Captain John, who took up a great territory in Queen`s County, Long Island, bought it of the Indians, and was the largest landholder in the space that is now called Queens County. Well, the [my great] grandfather Samuel married a pretty Quaker girl called Martha [Willets] Valentine [(1717-?)], and had a large family of sons and daughters, and made lots of money during the war by produce, and his farm grew valuable; and my Willet (it was I think his son Willet who came to New York, yet somehow I do believe it was Samuel) lived there as I have said until the war was over then he came to New York, went into mercantile business, had ships and grew to be very rich. He gave his sons and daughters as liberal and plain an education as the Friends deemed best, they held a testimony against too much, thinking there was a danger in it, that youths would be led into the ways of the world and all that, so [my] Grandfather Willet had his two sons, Benjamin [R. (1787-a.1815)] and Willet [(1781-1864)], in business with him - they were older than my father. Well the young Valentine wanted to study a profession - the old man did not want him to - so there was a tussle, but father did go to college, Columbia - old man was mad - and made him give so many hours in the counting room to keep the books, I have no doubt by his arbitrary way laying the seeds of that disease that.......... Then father graduated, now Philadelphia stood ahead of the cities for the highest opportunity for a doctor and to go thro the course there would be all that could be done - father wanted to go. "Not a bit," the old paternal said. "I will," said Valentine, and this was how it came about - to Benjamin Rush [(1745-1813)], yes the same who wrote his name on the Declaration of Independence with such a rush - couldn`t help the pun - forgive it. Well he heard of the promising young man in New York, and wrote to him saying, "Come live in my family, and thee need pay no board, now if at any time in thy life thee is able all right." So my father went and came home passing a second time to the honor of his M.D. - still the beautiful Anne was being accomplished at Willet Seaman`s all thro the term of Valentine`s studies at Philadelphia no fear for her mother I suppose as she still was subject to the admiration of those "homely boys."
Valentine returned. There had been no correspondence between the two. In those days of strict proprieties, a correspondence would have been viewed with disapproval - unless the two were engaged. Well, the evenings were again spent together but somehow it was
different - those dreams of the young doctor were or seemed to be only a dream. Anna altho friendly was what? Let some lover answer who fears and hopes - who has been absent from the girl of his heart without a line of even friendship; timid love grew more timid, the maiden grew more retiring - modesty veiled her manner and while she felt free to talk easily with those five homely brothers, her manner was cold, Valentine thought, to him, as wither [sic] were fleeing his hopes - not fleeing already fled.
Ah Love`s Young Dream. It was ever thus - tis ever thus today. The daughters were always in the room of the invalid mother - on the hearth the coals had fallen from the sticks; the two young hearts were throbbing, each full of distress - a gray ash gathered over the coals - for want of speech the youth stirred them. Oh, those nice old coals, how easy to fill up the gap in conversation. Valentine found it so, stirred the embers, drew the coals in a heap so that they glowed brightly and the light fell on the shaded face of the busy girl beside the table - a silence. "What is it Anna that seems to have come between thy life and mine? A cloud that shuts from me a hope." The coals grew brighter as they were laid together one by one, and Anna sighed. Did the sad youth hear that sigh? "Let me feel," he said, "that like these glowing embers, that for awhile have lain under the covering of ashes, there may be a hidden life in thy silence, and that a few words spoken will like these warm coals brighten into the glow of love." And so is was. The grandmother in her anxious caution to our grandfather knew full well the danger that lurked around young hearts whose eyes beheld each day that divine meaning of true love. Old grandfather Willet, still disapproving of his son wasting so much time, claimed so many hours of the young doctor`s time in his counting house, in the way of keeping the books which was a great drag: he really could not give up the idea that Valentine would see the folly of the practice of medicine when he found out how money could be made so much faster in this merchant`s business. This after hours work should stand for his board and also, the sisters must be paid for all the stitching and care of his clothes - even he had to pay for his washing at home. Oh, grandfather Willet was hard, but the child had opposed him. Fathers were hard, I think, in those days.
So then the lovers were engaged - and Anna went home. Had as it was termed, finished her education - fancy work which was well proven by the mystical needle book - and true love was not hurt by the gift of the gold bow scissors.
Well, with his board, his loss of time from practice, for already the Society of Quakers as is their wont, felt it right to employ in their families one of their members and the young doctor Seaman being so fully endorsed by both Columbia College in the City of New York and by the College of Philadelphia, he was fast growing into practice. So one day he said to his Anna, "Let us now be united, the living with my father and my loss of time for practice cost me more than a home of our own with moderation." So in 1794 these dear friends sent into meeting their proposals of marriage, which meeting appointing a committee of two of their
members, a man and a woman Friend, to investigate the matter, of which they made good report of the willingness of parents, the meeting saw fit that their proposal should be accepted - and that in two weeks the pair should appear before two meetings - that ceremony is called the passing of meeting. These are business meetings held apart, the women having the upper room in which they transact their affairs and the men theirs, then the two appear at the appointable time, and sit under the gallery - a most distressing occasion, and after a suitable silence they rise hand in hand and request an answer to their proposals of marriage - a dear friend rises and signifies their approval, then the embarrassed two go thro the same trying ceremony among the men friends in the basement. One week from this time on the fourth day of the week at a religious meeting where no business is transacted, the betrothed with their groomsmen and bridesmaids sit facing the body of the meeting for two hours. Generally there is some tender preaching from some saintly mother in the church - or some equally tender minister - often a prayer. It really is very solemn and impressive, the house always well filled on these occasions is so still it seems almost as often expressed that "The Lord is in his holy temple let all keep silence before him." Then a friend signifies that it would now be well so the young trembling couple arise hand in hand and say these words, first the groom:
"In presence of the Lord and these friends assembled, I state Mary Boun to be my wife promising thro divine assistance to be unto her a faithful and affectionate husband until separated by death." Then the young woman says the same form - a certificate of marriage, generally an elaborately prepared one, very beautifully written, is read by a good reader, before the meeting, having been signed by the wedded pair before it is read - after this friends present are at liberty to set their names, thus the certificate is handed down the generations with the signatures of parents and countless friends. It is highly valuable as a sort of household treasure. I have out here [in Michigan] my father and mother`s certificate upon which are written in bold hand the names of the grandfathers and the timid ones of the mothers, aunts, uncles. Oh! I could not tell how I value it.
After the marriage the bridal party escorted to the home of the bride generally, with two appointed overseers, these overseers are to see that the festivities are so conducted in a manner in accordance with the principles of Friends. It is all very sweet and full of loving advice - the wedding dinner is famous, and the evening entertainments where a great gathering are greeted is a marvel of hospitality. I was at the wedding of Edward A. Hopper [(?-?)] with the daughter of Lucretia [Coffin] Mott [(1793-1880) abolitionist and women`s rights leader] in Philadelphia. I was about fifteen years old [c. 1830] - it did seem to me that the whole affair was a sort of heaven. My brother Valentine [(1802-1899)] was one of the groomsmen. The table that was set around the four sides of a large room only the entrance from the door left open was spread in that delicate but bountiful style that Friends delighted in. The groomsmen three and the bridesmaids waited upon the seated guests. They were given long fine white aprons - it was too sweet for anything. Augustus if thee does not know much about Lucretia Mott get her life as a part of thy library, read
it and learn to know she is considered the greatest woman in mind that our country has. Also Isaac Hopper [(1771-1852), abolitionist, active in the Underground Railroad], the father of this young Edward our groom, is without parallel in good works for freedom of the slave and emancipation of thoughts.
I would love to talk of that visit in Philadelphia in that May week, so full of a sort of dreamy poetic something that always as I think of it I feel filled with a something that seems like heaven.
We made our home at a hotel called by the name of the woman who owned it Mrs. _______ it was greatly patronized by Boston people, especially those who were beginning to put forth the liberal ideas of Unitarianism. Furness [(?-?)], a furious radical, was storming for more freedom in a pulpit in Philadelphia and the young Quakers filled the church. This was a departure from Friends` principles but I think it was united in views for they went. My brother Valentine read diligently the Unitarian side of books, and had brot one with him, bits of Channing`s life. At Mrs. ________ we were told was Mr. William Ellery Channing [the abolitionist, (1780-1842)], wife and daughter, also many of his friends. One day one of these friends finding Valentine`s book on the table took it up, looked thro the leaves, and laid it down. I said, "I guess he doesn`t like it." "Oh," said Valentine, "he is one of a party at this house of Mr. Channing. Mr. Channing did not come to the table. I felt so sorry but was told that he was quite ill. I was so much disappointed for he was spoken so much of in all circles. I was disturbingly diffident but one day I said to my next neighbor at table, "Can you tell me how Mr. Channing is today?" He replied that, "He [I] believe[d] he was [is] much better." "Ah then," I said, with some emphasis, "perhaps he may soon be able to come to the table." He was an agreeable man so I felt quite easy to talk. I asked him if he knew Channing remarking that I had heard he was exceedingly diffident. "Yes," he said, "he was [is]." "It was painful at times he had heard?" Well, we were quite nice to one another, laughed a little and having to get the salt from the salt cellars with our fingers - "perhaps that was the latest way," talked about how to eat an orange gracefully, concluded that it could not be done, had a nice time. When we parted, he said he hoped we would meet again. I did too, really I fell in love with the nice young man.
In the afternoon I said, "Valentine, Mr. Channing is better, perhaps I will see him yet." He smiled and told me, "It was Mr. Channing that I [thee] had been talking to." Oh! dear and to think that I did not know him. I did not see him again.
Mr. Orville Dewey [(1794-1882)], a great friend of Channing, I met once at Mr. Bryant`s [William Cullen Bryant, (1794-1878), poet and editor] - a very popular Unitarian minister, he had an enthusiastic congregation in Broadway well up town. He seemed to stand next to Channing. We went over to "Spring Bank" - this was the name that Mr. Bryant gave to his home when he came to own it. Mr. Moulton in his romantic way had called it "Lake Moiston" - now I think it will be called "Cedar Mere" [Bryant made his home here from 1843 until his death in 1878; now known as Cedarmere, located on Bryant Avenue in Roslyn Harbor, Long Island, New York, and open to the public.] - this name was given by the poet. Mr. Bryant delighted to bend down a vigorous sampling like boys would do and getting on it ride up and down as rapidly as they could; in the backyard were two good sized ones and the afternoon that we went over we found on the back piazza Mr. Bryant and Orville Dewey, they laughed like boys who had been caught, told us how they had been riding and each declared that he had beaten - nothing could be pleasanter than to listen to these friends, comrades as we would call them now. Always Bryant would rush away to get something to illustrate the talk - this was his habit - as I have told you of the ______ - it was getting toward twilight, a little bird in the tree close by the piazza began his evening song. "Ah ha," said Dewey, "who is this little bird, who taught you to sing so sweetly, was it your brother songster who lives here, or was it you who taught him?" Then when Mr. Bryant came with a bound, he had found what he wanted, Dewey caught him by the tail of his coat, "See here my friend, see here my friend there is a little tell tale in the tree, hark, now be honest is it true, that you taught him or did he teach you," still pulling at his coat. Then they laughed and Bryant said, "I think the bird has won the day."
It was our pleasure to meet many noted men and women here - Their simple plays and talks would hardly be expected, conundrums, and little almost childish stories. One Christmas I picked up a book very beautifully bound - it was a few days after Christmas and finely illustrated. Mrs. Bryant said, "That was my husband`s Christmas present to me." In it he had written, "I know of no book that has given so much pleasure or which has been so universally read."
A little anecdote occurs to me. Mrs. Forrest, the wife of ........ was visiting at Cedeman [Cedar Mere, surely]. I think - at any rate she appeared to me to be a stiff, formal woman. Some had proposed tableaux for the next evening and we were invited. The hall broadened at the back made a nice place for the exhibition. The library on one side, and a sort of anteroom on the other and a sort of buttery, seemed all they needed for exit. By some chance coming from the dining room into this closet, to take something I had brot to Mrs. Bryant, there was Mrs. Forrest - she was in robes for the tableaux - seeing me, in quite a theatrical way, she told me I was "trespassing upon the privacies of the place," with some words not agreeable. Somehow not thro me Mrs. Bryant heard of it - the next afternoon we were again invited, and stopping a few minutes with Mrs. Kirkland in her cottage I came in the back door entering the library where Mrs. Bryant and Mrs. Forrest and a few friends were. Mrs. Bryant was always hearty in her greeting, always taking both hands and holding them awhile. Immediately she came to me and led me to Mrs. Forrest, saying, "Mrs. Forrest allow me to present to you my very dear friend." Some pleasant words she added; a color came in Mrs. Forrest`s face as tho she felt the peculiar emphasis.
The cottage in which Mrs. C. M. Kirkland [(?-?), writer on women`s rights] lived for a few weeks that summer was just a few steps back from the homestead. It was quite the way to build a cottage near a homestead - quite peculiar many were - in their way. The ground back of Mrs. Bryant`s was quite a rise - so that it made a nice basement of the first floor while the main house was on a level with the high ground - at our home "Hill Side" there were two of these ever so nice cottages - When Mr. Bryant came to see us he said, "Now I think we might have some very nice society for summer months in these snug little homes - and the good rent that would be paid would make up for it as if they were vacant the rest of the year - we did this and it was delightful.
Mrs. Kirkland and her husband was then living - and I think a daughter. It was so pleasant to walk over and have good talks with this so superior woman. I had read much of her writings. She was a hard worker and sometimes when I went there I found her busy altho always a nice welcome. One day I said, "I like to visit you, do you ever have leisure?" "Yes," she replied, "always in the afternoon before it gets to be twilight - come then." So I often did, wandering down to the little lakes and sitting awhile under that great old oak tree now famous as the Bryant Oak. So the summer passed away too soon, and one morning Mrs. Kirkland came to bid me good by [sic]. She spoke of some physician. I said, "How all this class of people are loved." "Yes, she answered, "I loved in my childhood our old doctor, I never can find anyone who ever knew him - and how we all did love him." I told her that my father was a doctor but I had no memory of him yet so often I had been told anecdotes of him and they were so grateful to me - then I said was an old monthly nurse who had heard of me and had sent me word that she would be glad to come to me, for she had been a student of a free class for nurses, the first that had ever been so for women, and she had heard that I was the daughter of her preceptor doctor Seaman. "Doctor Seaman," exclaimed Mrs. Kirkland, "Oh dear, and he was your father, oh why, my friend, did you not tell me this before? He was our doctor." Then she clasped me to her heart saying, "I am so happy, I loved him so."
In the Bryant cottage lived at different times Henry K. White [(?-?)] the sculptor`s delightful family - this man came out West and went among the Indians and brought home lots of wax, little head-types of Indian features. Mr. and Mrs. I think it was H. K. Kirke [(?-?)] - I can`t recall the name, the wife did me this good service, she said, "Never allow your children to get ahead of you in culture, it is so easy for children to say, Oh mother don`t know` let them look up to you as an authority." Then there was a man and his wife spiritualists, the name Rahn [(?-?)] - the husband more decidedly so, intellectual people - but peculiar - each would tell me of the other one`s proclivities, each rather telling me to be on my guard. Mrs. Bryant had told me to try and lead Mr. Rahn off, when he got upon the subject. One evening it was getting dark, quite a company on the back piazza and Mr. Rahn fell to my lot to entertain me. Pretty soon he said, "Do you see that light?" holding up his five fingers. I saw no light. "You will in a minute see a bright flame coming from each of these fingers shooting up like fire." I began to feel that in a minute I could see anything he wanted me to see - oh dear, I was being mesmerized. Mr. Bryant caught sight of me and came playfully and broke the spell. He was a good man scientific but this matter of spiritualism was doing an injury.
Mrs. Moulton sometimes took the cottage in the winter - always an interesting person but peculiar. Bright, witty - she still lives at Roslyn - you will remember Mr. Joseph Moulton was the one from whom Mr. Bryant bot the place.
I wonder if I have talked of Charles A. [Anderson] Dana [(1819-1897), newspaper editor] and his wife who one summer took our cottage by the gate. If I have, go on. It was one of those homes built under the hill, extremely pretty in its situation the family, Mr. and Mrs. Dana, two sweet children, Mrs. Daniels, mother of Mrs. Dana. The family of Dana were Spiritualists. There seemed no need of their dying to go to Heaven their natures were so spiritual here, and yet withall, filled with the most buoyant joyful pep and humor. The first I knew of their being Spiritualists Mrs. Dana was telling of the sudden death of her beloved brother, such a darling the baby of the family nearing manhood, full of magnetic sympathy with nature and man and news as it came to his mother, "Oh," I exclaimed, "how did she bear it, so tender, so loving and her health so frail?" "Oh," replied Mrs. Dana, "perfectly quietly you know that we feel that our dear ones never leave us. I think mother was really happier after brother died. She knew we all did that now he would never leave us." "Beautiful belief," I said. "Why," she replied, "how can it be different? It is the soul we love, you know and that loves us."
Continuation of my father`s and mother`s marriage where I broke off by telling of the customs of the Quakers and in telling that I was interrupted and ran on in a way that I must now make good so having concluded upon marriage in 1794, they were married.
My grandfather John Ferris gave to his daughter five thousand dollars for her outfit in dress and household furniture.
...Continued in the Notes for Margaret's brother, Chandler Ives.
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