These daughters, Anne and Marjorie, or “the two Ide girls” as they were then popularly known, displayed no sign of Puritan ancestry or upbringing. They were just remarkably beautiful and altogether charming and delightful. A large part of their girlhood had been spent in Samoa; they were the product of an intermittent, but very picturesque education, and there was ingrained in them some of that happy-go-lucky attitude toward life, and that freedom from useless convention which the Occidental is not unlikely to acquire in the Orient.
These girls had, in Samoa, been great friends of Robert Louis Stevenson. Anne, the elder, was the especial favourite of the beauty-loving invalid and he willed to her his birthday, as can be learned from his Samoan letters. She was born near Christmas time and had never known what it was to have her birthday celebrated, a great deprivation in childhood. But she now celebrates as her own the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson and it is, I believe, her most cherished possession.
Marjorie, whose career, ever since our first trip together, I have followed with the greatest affection and interest, had even more of the carefree attitude than Anne. She used to convulse us with cruelly funny accounts of her adventures with admirers, of whom there were many, and with descriptions of some of the strange acquaintances she made during her travels with her father.
Among the passengers on the Hancock was Dr. Kneedler, an army surgeon, with his wife and two little girls. These little girls were exceedingly bright and inquisitive. Young ladies and gentlemen had particular and irresistible attractions for them and the Ide young ladies kept them very much occupied. The Ide young ladies didn’t encourage their attentions and this fact engendered their hostility. They therefore referred to the Misses Ide as “them there Ides.” With their delightful sense of humour the Ides, of course, rejoiced in the designation and in all the thirteen years since then they have never met Mr. Taft or me without presenting themselves as “them there Ides.”
The Misses Ide were destined to be the unrivalled belles of Manila society for six years and then to move on to broader social spheres. Anne was married to Mr. Bourke Cochran shortly after her father left the Philippines, but Marjorie continued to be her father’s companion for several years, going with him to Madrid when he was appointed Minister to Spain and presiding over the American Legation there until she married Mr. Shane Leslie and went to London to live.
General Wright, Judge Ide and Mr. Taft were the lawyers on the Commission and it was felt that their familiarity with law and governmental matters greatly enhanced the strength and preparedness of the Commission for the work they had to do.
Mr. Worcester was an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. He too was a Vermonter, with quite as much fortiter in re, but with somewhat less of the suaviter in modo than Judge Ide inherently had, or had acquired in his Samoan experience.
Mr. Worcester was the only member of the party who had ever been to the Philippines before. I think he had been there twice with scientific expeditions before the Battle of Manila Bay had thrust the guardianship of the Filipinos upon our country, and in the course of his trips, with his fluency in Spanish as it is spoken in the Philippines, he had acquired a very intimate knowledge of the people and their customs, as well as of the flora and fauna of the islands. He had written a book on the Philippines which came out at a most fortunate time, just when Dewey’s victory had turned the eyes of the country upon that never-before-thought-of corner of the world. This book led to his appointment on the first Commission and his useful, loyal, courageous and effective labours with that body led Mr. McKinley to appoint him on the second.
He is a large, forceful man with rather abrupt manners and very decided opinions and perhaps no greater contrast could be imagined than exists between him and Mrs. Worcester, who, in outward seeming, is the frailest kind of little woman, with a sweet face and engagingly gentle manners which suggest timidity. Mrs. Worcester has proved herself to possess the frailty of flexible steel. At that time we were quite concerned about her, I remember, thinking she would not be able to endure the Philippine climate even for a short period. But she has lived there from that day to this. She has been with her husband through many experiences from which the strongest woman would shrink, toiling with him over hundreds of miles of mountain and jungle trail on his frequent expeditions into the countries of the wild tribes and meeting every difficulty without comment. She is in excellent health and is a living refutation of the familiar exaggerations as to the effect of the climate. They had with them two little white haired children, one of them quite delicate, who have grown up in the Philippines strong and healthy and have received most of their education in the schools established there under American government.
The last member
