Now there is something very surprising about this statue: it was the
first one that was ever made in America in honour of a woman. Even in
Europe there are not many monuments to women, and most of the few are to
great queens or princesses, very beautiful and very richly dressed. You
see, this statue in New Orleans is not quite like anything else.
It is the statue of a woman named Margaret. Her whole name was Margaret
Haughery, but no one in New Orleans remembers her by it, any more than
you think of your dearest sister by her full name; she is just Margaret.
This is her story, and it tells why people made a monument for her.
When Margaret was a tiny baby, her father and mother died, and she was
adopted by two young people as poor and as kind as her own parents. She
lived with them until she grew up. Then she married, and had a little
baby of her own. But very soon her husband died, and then the baby died,
too, and Margaret was all alone in the world. She was poor, but she was
strong, and knew how to work.
All day, from morning until evening, she ironed clothes in a laundry.
And every day, as she worked by the window, she saw the little
motherless children from the orphan asylum, near by, working and
playing about. After a while, there came a great sickness upon the city,
and so many mothers and fathers died that there were more orphans than
the asylum could possibly take care of.
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