Fragile Freedom

Few knew the man’s private anguish as Patrick Henry rose to the floor at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia. They perhaps knew that only four days prior he had said his final goodbye to his beloved wife Sarah, the mother of his six children, but what they didn’t know was the long battle that they had waged against her mental illness, or how he chose to care for her at home rather than subject her even to the harsh but progressive treatment of the newly opened Eastern State Hospital. Having seen the condition, having witness the deplorable, even cruel estate they would have left his wife in, the 38 year old Virginia lawyer would take on the care of her himself at their home at Scotchtown Plantation, watching over her to prevent her from hurting herself, bathing and clothing and feeding her. Even as she passed, denied a Christian burial because of her illness, Henry would bury her not more than 30 feet from their home, planting a lilac bush to mark that place now so sacred to him. No, how could they know t