and sad look my boy maker, now a young man, left me.  I felt then that we had looked our last upon each other in this place; but little did either of us dream of where, when, and how we would meet again.  For thirty-five years I labored on unchanged, though I must own to having had some ailments now and then.  About this period of my existence I overheard straggling remarks, as the worshippers passed out of the church, which led me to conclude that some change was contemplated, and my suspicions were confirmed by the rector proposing from the pulpit the erection of a new church edifice in another part of the city, to be fashioned after a more modern style of architecture. . . .  In accordance with the promise made my boy maker, I was to go back to him.  My heart bounded at the prospect.  Never in all those years had I seen him. . . .

“In a short time I learned that the author of my existence, after many hard struggles and trials, had at last found truth and light, peace and rest, in the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church.  He had returned, when he found me, from the Plenary Council of 1867.  He is now a priest, and the head of a religious community.  Need I assure those who have been interested in my history that I also have found a home in the same community, where I am consecrated to its use?  I am no longer alone now; I am busy from morning until night, helping to regulate the movements of the community.  There is not an hour in the day when I do not see my boy maker.  We have established sympathies in common; I call him to prayers, to his meals, to his matins, and to his rest.  Many a time, when he finds me alone, he gives me some spiritual reading, or says aloud some prayers.  Every time I strike, he breathes an aspiration of love and thanksgiving.  In short, we have found our glorious mission in our new birth.  We are both apostles:  I represent Time; he preaches of Eternity.”

There can be little doubt, however, that the chief formative influence in the Hecker household was that which came directly through the mother.  Young as she was when an unduly heavy share of the domestic burdens fell to her portion, she took it up with courage and bore it with dignity and fidelity.  What aid her father could give her was doubtless not lacking, but we may well suppose that, as age crept on Engel Freund, his business began to slip away from him into younger hands.  He was probably no longer in a position to endow daughters or to undertake the education of grandchildren.  What is certain is that Caroline Hecker’s boys, after very brief school-days, were put at once to hard work.  What decided their choice of an occupation is not so sure, but in all probability they consulted with their mother and then took the common-sense view that as there is a never-failing market for food staples, even poverty, if mated with diligence and sagacity, may find there a fair field for successful enterprise.  John, the eldest, upon whom the mother soon began to rely as her right hand, went to learn his trade as a baker with a Mr. Schwab, whose shop was on the corner of Hester and Eldridge Streets.  George, who was some three or four years younger, as the only girl, Elizabeth, came between them, presently followed his brother to the same business.