In a much loved and worn volume of Whittier's poems, given to Mary Ober in 1858-1859 is written in her own hand, "the happiest winter of my life." Pinned to a leaf is a cutting, with the following epitaph from an old English burial ground: "I will not bind myself to grief: 'Tis but as if the roses that climbed My garden wall Had blossomed on the other side." The poems she marked are: "The Kansas Emigrants," "Question of Life," and "Gone," in this last poem she underscored the verse: "And grant that she who trembling here, Distrusted all her powers, May welcome to her holier home The all beloved of ours." These are keys to her thoughts, she believed in abolition, in the saving of the Union, she was absorbed in the Civil War, in the going away of relatives and friends, and she took great interest in the work of the Sanitary Commission. My grandmother, Mrs. Charles G. Loring, worked in the commission rooms in Boston by day, in the evening she would bring materials and drive about in her buggy to distribute them among the neighbors, collecting the finished garments to be carried back to Boston by an early train. Mary Ober often went with her, helping in all ways, and they became great friends; it was partly through her influence that Mary went to Florida for the benefit of her health in the winter of 1871. The next winter she took a school in Georgia under the "Freedman's Bureau" where she taught the little darkies, who adored her. In 1872 and 1873 she taught the children of the poor whites in the school at Wilmington, North Carolina, and it was here that she met Sarah E. Miller who was to be her devoted, life-long friend. This was the Tileston School founded by Mrs. Mary Hemenway, its principal was Miss Amy Bradley; it was perhaps the best known school carried on by the northerners in the South. For two years longer she taught half terms in Beverly Farms and then as she regained health and strength, from 1875 to 1899 Miss Ober was head of the Farms School, then in Haskell Street, beginning with a salary of $180. She never had a large salary. It was considered the best school in the town. The building was the wooden one, now a house, on the next lot to the brick school. She kept up with the times, introduced grades and had several assistants as the years went on. She continued her career as a most successful teacher, she was strict but just and kind, always interested in her children whether in school or afterward, keeping in touch with them and following their careers with sympathy. When Mr. Charles H. Trowt was elected Mayor of the City she wrote: "And you were my curly-headed, fair-haired little boy in school." She had a happy home with her mother and stepfather; "Uncle David" she always called him, though she maintained the relation of a loving daughter. Her mother died in the spring of 1876 and Mr. Larcom died in 1883.