● ● ● Mrs. Patterson. The boy, who was completely healed, afterwards became a mechanical engineer and lived a happy and useful life.34
Much of the history of this period we can only guess at. Even the sequence of events is obscure. Apparently Patterson, soon after the eviction by the Russells, put in an appearance again, and husband and wife then moved into the boardinghouse of Mrs. George D. Clark on Summer Street for part of July and August.35 There, toward the end of August, he finally deserted her.
When she obtained a divorce seven years later, young George Clark, son of the boardinghouse keeper, accompanied her to court as a witness. Mrs. Patterson brought a charge of desertion. According to Clark’s later affidavit, when the judge asked why Patterson had deserted her she replied, “To escape arrest.” “Arrest for what?” he inquired, and the answer was, “On account of his adultery.” Clark then records ● ● ●
34 Elizabeth Harding, 8 July 1929, Reminiscence, MBEL. Miss Harding’s interest in Christian Science was first aroused when her mother was told of the incident by Mrs. Norton years later. Her mother also signed the account. [Publisher’s note: Harding’s reminiscence dates this healing to 1865 or 1866; subsequent research dates it to c. 1877.] Cf. the following testimony by one Neal Heely Hayes of Boston published in Clifford P. Smith, Christian Science: Its Legal Status; A Defense of Human Rights (Boston: Christian Science Publishing Society, 1914), p. 83:
From the time of my birth my feet were imperfect; I did not walk until I was three years old. After I was otherwise full grown my feet were less than half the size they should have been, their structure was abnormal, and I had no use of my toes. This condition continued until I was thirty-five years old, three years after I began to read Christian Science literature. During these three years I received much physical as well as moral benefit from Christian Science, but no change took place with respect to my feet. Indeed I did not expect them ever to be different.
Something occurred, however, to correct my thoughts about myself. A friend of ours whose feet were somewhat like mine, went to a hospital for an operation. The “dissection of thoughts” which this incident aroused, and the earnest study of Christian Science which ensued, brought about a complete change in my feet. Five weeks after this more active mental work began, and within the course of twenty-four hours, the size and shape of my feet became in every way normal. Even the nails, which had been defective, became natural. I was obliged to get new shoes the next day, and the difference in my walk was noticeable at once to all who knew me.
35 Her movements at this time cannot be followed with precision. A fragment from an unidentified diary for July 1866 (possibly Susan Oliver’s) reads:
Monday 16th . . .
Mrs. Patterson came tonight—we have quite a house full
Tues. 17th . . .
Mrs. Paterson went to Rumney.
Manuscript fragment, June–July 1866, Subject File, Mary Baker Eddy - Residences - Rumney, NH, MBEL.