She not only continued to work in the school at
Tuskegee, but also kept up her habit of going North to secure funds.
In 1889 she died, after four years of happy married life and eight
years of hard and happy work for the school. She literally wore
herself out in her never ceasing efforts in behalf of the work that
she so dearly loved. During our married life there were born to us
two bright, beautiful boys, Booker Taliaferro and Ernest Davidson.
The older of these, Booker, has already mastered the brick-maker's
trade at Tuskegee.
I have often been asked how I began the practice of public
speaking. In answer I would say that I never planned to give any
large part of my life to speaking in public. I have always had more
of an ambition to _do_ things than merely to talk _about_ doing them.
It seems that when I went North with General Armstrong to speak at the
series of public meetings to which I have referred, the President of
the National Educational Association, the Hon. Thomas W. Bicknell, was
present at one of those meetings and heard me speak. A few days
afterward he sent me an invitation to deliver an address at the next
meeting of the Educational Association. This meeting was to be held
in Madison, Wis. I accepted the invitation. This was, in a sense,
the beginning of my public-speaking career.
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