Longing to Hear a Book Read - 1841
Stephen and Mary Rigg.
Introduction
Stephen and Mary Rigg were missionaries to the Dakota Indians. Opposition to their mission was strong. Indians killed the mission animals, stole utensils and crops, threatened to tear down the Riggs’s tiny home, and sometimes shot arrows or fired guns at them.
On this day, April 28, 1841, while living at Lac-qui-parle (Minnesota), Mary replied to a letter from her brother, Alfred. She wistfully remembered the flowers of their childhood home in Massachusetts and remarked on the absence of blossoms in her present surroundings. She also noted how unprotected her family was. Immediately she warned herself not to complain, but rather to remember the Lord’s blessings to her, which included two beloved children. Perhaps her most poignant expression of loss came out in the last paragraph—before the era of radio, television, or record players, for isolated individuals, the only cultural stimulus was reading.
Quote
“I suppose you have hardly yet found how much of romance is mingled with your ideas of a married state. You will find real life much the same that you have ever found, and with additional joys, additional cares, and sorrows. I have realized as much happiness as I anticipated, though many of my bright visions have not been realized, and others have been much changed in outline and finishing. For instance, our still winter evenings are seldom enlivened by reading, while I am engaged lulling our little ones or plying my needle. Although I should greatly enjoy such a treat occasionally, I cannot in our situation expect it, while it is often almost the only time husband can secure for close and uninterrupted study. You know the time of a missionary is not his own.”
Riggs, Stephen R. Mary and I; Forty Years with the Sioux. Chicago: W. G. Holmes, 1880.