They were married at St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, April 21, 1832, and went into the country at once. There was a terrible storm of wind and rain that day, which seemed to the disapproving family an appropriate sign of woe. But it was only the feminine members of the family who were so opposed to my father. My uncle approved of mamma’s choice, for he recognized in my father rare qualities of mind and spirit and that thing we call character which is so hard to define.
My uncle feared my mother would find only raw, untrained servants in her new home, so he gave her a well-trained maid and seamstress to whom she was accustomed, and who was devoted to her. Maum Lavinia was a thoroughly trained, competent house-servant, and must have been a great comfort, though she had a terrible temper. She married on the plantation and had a large family, dying only a few years ago, keeping all her faculties to extreme age. One of her grandsons is a prosperous, respected man in New York now, Hugh Roberton. I keep track of all the descendants of our family servants, and it gives me great pleasure when they make good and do credit to their ancestry. It does not always happen. In so many instances, to my great regret, they have fallen in character and good qualities instead of rising;--without training or discipline that is to be expected.
Mamma has told me of her dismay when she found what a big household she had to manage and control. Not long after they were married she went to my father, almost crying, and remonstrated: “There are too many servants; I do not know what to do with them. There is Mary, the cook; Milly, the laundress; Caroline, the housemaid; Cinda, the seamstress; Peter, the butler; Andrew, the second dining-room man; Aleck, the coachman; and Moses, the gardener. And George, the scullion, and the boy in the yard besides! I cannot find work for them! After breakfast, when they line up and ask, ‘Miss, wha’ yu’ want me fu’ do to-day?’ I feel like running away. Please send some of them away, for Lavinia is capable of doing the work of two of them. Please send them away, half of them, at least.”
But papa made her understand that he could not. These were house-servants; they had been trained for the work, even if they were not efficient and well trained. It would be a cruelty to send them into the field, to work which they were not accustomed to. Then he said: “As soon as you get accustomed to the life here you will know there is plenty for them to do. The house is large and to keep it perfectly clean takes constant work. Then there is the constant need of having clothes cut and made for the babies and little children on the place; the nourishment, soup, etc., to be made and sent to the sick. You will find that there is really more work than there are hands for, in a little while.” And truly she found it so. But it took all her own precious time to direct and plan and carry out the work. The calls to do something which seemed important and necessary were incessant. One day my father came in and asked her to go with him to see a very ill man. She answered: “My dear Mr. Urston” (she always called papa Mr. Allston, but she said it so fast that it sounded like that), “I know nothing about sickness, and there is no earthly use for me to go with you. I have been having the soup made and sending it to him regularly, but I cannot go to see him, for I can do him no good.” He answered with a grave, hurt look: “You are mistaken; you can do him good. At any rate, it is my wish that you go.” Mamma got her hat and came down the steps full of rebellion, but silent. He helped her into the buggy and they drove off down the beautiful avenue of live oaks, draped with gray moss, out to the negro quarter, which is always called by them “the street.”