WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 91 



head. Who this physician was, or of his ability, we can not say; 

 but there is one thing certain, mother never made up that story. It 

 might have been in this case as in some others, mother love saved the 

 child when the skill of the ablest physician only played a minor part. 



After he was about three years of age, his health and strength began 

 to improve, although he still had a physical defect that was afterward 

 outgrown. Possibly Doctor McGee inherited from his ancestry a little 

 of their ruggedness which helped him to overcome the extreme weak- 

 ness of childhood. His parents were of sturdy Scotch-Irish stock, 

 his great-great-grandfather on the parental side having been Alex- 

 ander McGee, of County Down, Ireland, who came early to this coun- 

 try, and on the maternal side the line leads back to Samuel Anderson 

 who was born at sea about 1740, of Irish emigrant parents. The 

 latter resided at Yorktown, Virginia, and both participated in the 

 Revolution on the American side. Grandma Anderson's maiden 

 name was Haggard, whose ancestry is traced back many generations 

 to a Welsh family of Haggards living in Wales. They are distin- 

 guished for their longevity. A first cousin of mother's, Nancy Hag- 

 gard Smith, living at Springfield, Minnesota, celebrated her ninety- 

 sixth birthday last April. She reads much without spectacles and 

 feels proud of the fact that she is related to H. Rider Haggard, the 

 novelist of England. 



It has been said, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends." It 

 has often occurred to us in fancy that the beautiful place where 

 brother and I were born might have had a trifle of influence in shap- 

 ing his future career and attainment of eminence. Mother was born 

 within two miles of the great Mammoth Cave of Kentucky and had a 

 discerning eye toward the beautiful and sublime in nature. When a 

 building spot was sought on the land father had entered from the 

 Government, mother selected a site with so beautiful a landscape 

 view that it might have driven to ecstasies either poet or artist. It 

 was on an open prairie spot with a semi-circle of woodland a few rods 

 to the front of where the house was to be located. There was a fine 

 spring and large pond near it, which added to the charm of the place. 

 Directly in front of our house was the semi-circle of high forest trees 

 edged with smaller trees and shrubs that bloomed, and when the sun 

 arose in his glory and splendor seemingly from behind the great 



