The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

Transcription

Edison's Father
The Venerable Parent of the Great Inventor on a Visit to New Orleans. 
Everybody who has used a telephone of hurled malediction upon an ill-burning incandescent lamp knows who Thomas Alva Edison is but not every knows who is the great man's father.
Samuel Edison arrived in New Orleans day before yesterday and is now stopping at Lally's Hotel on Peydras street. Here a Picayaus reporter met the old gentlemen yesterday morning and had a long chat with him about his illustrious son.
Mr. Edison who is accompanied by Mr. James Symington, a life-long and devoted friend, comes directly from his home in Michigan and is on his way to Florida, where he expects to spend the the spring months at the extensive orange groves which belong to his son there. The rigid climate of more northern regions affected which he hopes to find benefited by the balmy breezes of the sunny south.
In personal appearance Mr. Edison strikingly resembles James H. Blaine. In fact, the only perceptible difference, as the old gentlemen duly observed, lies in political opinions. Mr. Edison is extremely tall and bears himself erect, despite his 88 years. His face is fine and impressive, scarred  with a myriad of fine wrinkles, and surrounded by a wealth of white whiskers. He has blue, keen eyes, that twinkle merrily beneath bushy eyebrows and look out on life with the same happy light that grows in a boy's.
Mr. Symington is a Scotchman by birth and retains the rugged physiology characteristic of his nation. His ruling passion seems to be admiration for Thomas Edison and love for Thomas's father. Both of the old men talked freely of the past to the reporter, and told him all they knew of the youth of the great inventor.
"Yes" said Mr. Edison, in response to a question if he had seen his son recently. "I was at Llewellyn Park less than three weeks since. Work has absorbed all the social features of the life there, and in the family circle my son was but little seen during my stay. A vast space has been offered to my son in which to place his inventions for exhibition at the Chicago fair, and preparations of the great exhibition absorb much of his time.
"New Orleans out to take unusual interest in my son." said Mir. Edison, falling into a reminiscent mood. "It was in 1867, if I remember rightly that he was employed in this city as a telegrapher. He always was a bright, enterprising, young fellow, and he made quite a success here. But one of the traits he inherited from me was a propensity to wander, and so in the following year he got a situation on a vessel bound to Rio de Janeiro and the coast of the Argentine Republic. My son could not stand the seasickness which attacked him soon after getting into open wate5. He grew so think and weak that when his ship touched at Vera Cruz the doctor sent him ashore to recuperate. He spent quite a while in Aztec land, and came north after a short visit to Cuba."
"It is hard to realize," said Mr. Symington, who had been listening to the old gentleman's talk, "that the little fellow I used to trot on my knee has grown up to be the greatest of modern inventors. I often wonder when I see some fond father leading his youthful heir by the hand if the boy will astonish him in after life as the little Tommy astonished us."
Mr. Edison will leave either today or tomorrow for his destination in Florida. He expressed himself as more than pleased with his visit to this city and expects in the future to visit it again. That, however, will be long hence; for if his plans are carried out as at present projected, Mr. Edison wil go to Amsterdam the city of his father's birth and spend the next year or so in a tour through Holland.