Herbert Eugene Bolton

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Albert L. Hurtado. Herbert Eugene Bolton

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Albert L.

· HERBERT EUGENE BOLTON

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Herbert's loneliness was real enough. He and Gertrude occasionally exchanged letters and saw each other when he went home, but he may have taken her for granted.36 “I'll be terribly sweet when I go home…and make up for it all. Someday I'll get left, won't I?” he cavalierly added. He had also heard a false rumor that Gertrude and several other Tunnel City students would not graduate on time. The story might have lowered Gertrude a bit in the estimation of a young man who was betting everything on the power of education to improve his condition in the world. Gertrude's intelligence and excellent academic performance had been among the qualities that recommended her to Herbert. Now, perhaps, she was lowering her sights, looking ahead to a life as wife and mother with some local farm boy or merchant. Besides, Herbert had a long way to go before he was ready for marriage and capable of supporting a family. Gertrude, “old girl,” as he sometimes called her, might turn out to be Herbert's old girl. In the fullness of his young manhood he no doubt assumed that the choice would be his, but life would be full of surprises for Herbert.

Once home, Herbert hoped to work and save enough to join Fred at Wisconsin Normal in the fall. He had managed to save a hundred dollars from his York earnings, but he put this in the family common fund and so was not able to use that money to go to Milwaukee or to help Fred. But he was not the only Bolton who was banking on higher education to lift the family out of penury. Mrs. Bolton had mortgaged the farm to help the boys through college. Then she sold a horse for $85 and sent some money to Fred. To Herbert's great surprise and satisfaction, the family urged him to go to normal school immediately and provided money to do it. On March 1 he informed Fred that he would arrive in Milwaukee the next Monday on the midnight train.37

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