6 SIMON HENRY GAGE 
Mrs. Gage’s parents were then these two people with their 
sound heredity and wholesome youthful training, and their 
rather broad experiences. Naturally they were interested in 
and upholders of the church, the schools, and all the other en- 
terprises for the betterment of the community. While these 
interior villages of the country could not all have colleges or 
Seminaries for higher learning, they could have the lyceum on 
whose stage came some of the best men of the country; and 
her parents did their full share in supporting this institution. 
With such a father and mother it seemed perfectly natural 
that the child should have a sound character, and not at all sur- 
prising that there was strong love of learning and a taste for 
the finer things of life. While of course the father and mother 
wished all good things for their daughter, they were not so 
fatally unwise as to neglect the homely duties in education and 
training, for they knew full well that the finer things of life 
come only through the portals of labor and service; they knew 
also that the labor was not the only purpose of life, only a 
means to an end. 
Morrisville, the birthplace and home, is in one of the beauti- 
ful valleys so common in New York State. The surrounding 
country is a rich farming region with its hills and upland pla- 
teaus. On the north not far away are Utica and Syracuse, 
and to the south is Binghamton. In the neighboring villages of 
Hamilton and Clinton are Colgate and Hamilton colleges. 
The home was in the midst of the village just across the 
street from the school house and the churches, and the father’s 
store was only a short walk down the street. Higher up on the 
street stood the court house and other county buildings. ‘This 
main street was a part of the once famous Cherry Valley Turn- 
pike. Before her eyes then as she grew up were the physical 
representations of transportation in the turnpike; law and goy- 
ernment in the county buildings; education in the school house, 
and the spiritual life in the churches. While the village in the 
valley seemed in security and peace as if surrounded and pro- 
tected by the everlasting hills, those same hills gave opportunity 
for the wide view and the call that comes from mountain tops 
