MATRONS AND MAIDENS WHO CAME IN THE MAYFLOWER It has been said, with some justice, that the Pilgrims were not remarkable men, that they lacked genius or distinctive personalities. The same statement may be made about the women. They did possess, as men and women, fine qualities for the work which they were destined to accomplish,--remarkable energy, faith, purpose, courage and patience. These traits were prominent in the leaders, Carver and Bradford, Standish and Winslow, Brewster and Dr. Fuller. As assistants to the men in the civic life of the colony, there were a few women who influenced the domestic and social affairs of their own and later generations. From chance records, wills, inventories and traditions their individual traits must be discerned, for there is scarcely any sequential, historic record. Death claimed some of these brave-hearted women before the life at Plymouth really began. Dorothy May Bradford, the daughter of Deacon May of the Leyden church, came from Wisbeach, Cambridge; she was married to William Bradford when she was about sixteen years old and was only twenty when she was drowned at Cape Cod. Her only child, a son, John, was left with her father and mother in Holland and there was long a tradition that she mourned grievously at the separation. This son came later to Plymouth, about 1627, and lived in Marshfield and Norwich, Connecticut. The tiny pieces of a padded quilt with faded threads of silver and gold, which belonged to Rose Standish, [Footnote: Now in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth.] are fitting relics of this mystical, delicate wife of "the doughty Captain." She died January 29, 1621. She is portrayed in fiction and poetry as proud of her husband's bravery and his record as a Lieutenant of Queen Elizabeth's forces in aid of the Dutch. She was also proud of his reputed, and disputed, inheritance among the titled families of Standish of Standish and Standish of Duxbury Hall. [Footnote: For discussion of the ancestry of Standish, see "Some Recent Investigations of the Ancestry of Capt. Myles Standish," by Thomas Cruddas Porteus of Coppell, Lancashire; N. E. Gen. Hist. Register, 68; 339-370; also in edition, Boston, 1914.] There has been a persistent tradition that Rose was born or lived on the Isle of Man and was married there, but no records have been found as proofs.