Kate Moore - The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Shocking Story of a Woman Who Dared to Fight Back

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Books . Change . Lives .

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Books . Change . Lives .

June 18, 1860
Manteno, Illinois

It was the last day, but she didnt know it.

In truth, we never do.

Not until it is too late.

She woke in a handsome maple bed, body covered by a snow-white counterpane. As her senses resurfaced after a restless nights sleep, Elizabeth Packards brown eyes blearily mapped the landmarks of her room: embroidered ottoman, mahogany bureau, and smart green shutters thatfor some reasonwere failing to let in any light.

Ordinarily, her husband of twenty-one yearsTheophilus, a preacherwould have been snoring next to her, his gravity-defying, curly red hair an impromptu pillow beneath his head. But a few long weeks before, hed abandoned their marital bed.

He thought it best, or so hed said, to sleep alone these days.

Instead, her senses were filled by the precious proximity of her slumbering six-year-old son. Unconsciously, Elizabeth reached out for ten-year-old Libby and baby Arthur toothe other two of her six children whod taken to sleeping beside herbefore remembering. Only George was there. The others were both away from home, in what she hoped was coincidence.

Elizabeth drank in the sight of her sleeping child. She could not help but smile at her mother-boy; He was a restless child, for whom the hardest work in the world was sitting still, so it made a change to see him so at peace. His dark hair lay wild against his pillow, pink lips pursing with a childs innocent dreams.

He and her five other childrenArthur, Libby, Samuel, Isaac, and Theophilus III, who ranged in age from eighteen months to eighteen yearswere truly the sun, moon and stars offered such blessed light. It was particularly welcome in a world that was becoming, by the day, increasingly black.

Such melancholy thoughts were uncharacteristic for Elizabeth. In normal times, the forty-three-year-old was always rejoicing. from Elizabeth.

Last night, that ominous sense of foreboding had plagued her until she could not sleep. Around midnight, shed given up and crept out of bed. She wanted to know what Theophilus was planning.

She decided to find out.

Quietly, she moved about the house, a ghostly figure in her nightdress, footsteps as muffled as a womans gagged voice. To her surprise, her husband was not in his bed. Instead, she spied him noiselessly searching through all my trunks.

Elizabeths heart quickened, wondering what he was up to. Hed long been in the habit of trying to control her. When I was a young lady, I didnt mind it so much, Elizabeth confided, for then I supposed my husbandknew more than I did, and his will was a better guide for me than my own.

But over the years, as Theophilus had at various times confiscated her mail, refused her access to her own money, and even removed her from what he deemed the bad influence of her friends, doubts had surfaced. The net he cast about her felt more like a cage than the protection marriage had promised. Once, hed even threatened to sue a male acquaintance for writing to her without his permission, demanding $3,000 (about $94,000 today) for the affront.

In all their years together, however, he had never before rifled through her things at night. Fortunately, he was so engrossed in his task he did not see her. Elizabeth slipped back to bed, her sharp mind whirring, reviewing the events that had led them to this point.

The Packards had married in 1839 when Elizabeth was a green

Elizabeth and Theophilus Packard

At first, all had seemed well. Elizabeth had been raised to be a silent listener

The problem in their marriage had been he didnt make her shine in return. Their characters were as opposite as it was possible to get. Where Elizabeth was vibrant, sociable, and curious, Theophilus was gloomy, timorous, andin his own wordsdull.

Nevertheless, she said nothing to him directly, enduring this blighting, love strangling process silently, and for the most part uncomplainingly.

That isuntil everything changed. In 1848, the first Womans Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, unleashing a national conversation about the rights of women. It was one in which Elizabeth and, less willingly, Theophilus took part. Wives are not mere thingsthey are a part of society,

Countless times, the couple had warm discussion[s] on the subject. It was Elizabeth, naturally blessed with a most rare command of language,

Perhaps the notion that caused him most consternation: in Elizabeths words, I, though a woman, have just as good a right to my opinion, as my husband has to his.

The concept was dazzling. I have got a mind of my own, she realized, and a will, too, and I will think and act as I please.

Elizabeths newfound autonomy was anathema to Theophilus. Wives, obey your husbands Defiantly, she kept on articulating her own thoughts, asserting her own self, inspired by the womens rights movement that it was her right to do so.

Theophiluss response was telling. He did not allow his wife agency. He did not encourage her independence. Instead, he wrote that he had sad reason to fear his wifes mind was getting out of order; she was becoming insane on the subject of womans rights.

On the morning of June 18, 1860, Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably in bed, her disquiet slowly intensifying. Beyond her bedroom window, the noise of the nearby prairie filtered through the closed green shutters. Elizabeth loved living in the Midwest. Action is the vital element out here, she wrote approvingly. The prairie winds are always movingno such thing as a dead calm day here.

By this point, that lack of calmness applied to the Packards marriage too, because their differences had only increased after the family moved west five years earlier. The change of scene had reflected Elizabeths literally widening horizons. Shelburne, Massachusetts, where the Packards had lived for most of their marriage, was a place dominated by mountains and trees: a landscape that spoke deafeningly of what had always been and always would be. In contrast, the open prairies and wide skies of the Midwest seemed to herald endless possibilitieswhat could be, not what had been. Elizabeth felt strongly that womans mind aint a barren soil,

She put that reason into practice. Soon, it wasnt just her appetite for womens rights that disturbed Theophilus. Elizabeth had a fiercely inquiring mind, and once she began to pull at the threads of their misogynistic society, the whole tapestry of their lives started to unravel. Both Packards were extremely devout, yet Elizabeth became wary of mindlessly swallowing what other people preached, including the sermons of her husband. Instead, she read widely about other faiths and philosophies until eventually her independent thinking led her to question her husbands creed.

In fact, almost by nature, Elizabeth and Theophilus worshipped different gods. To Elizabeth, God was love. But to Theophilus, He was a distant tyrant who dispensed His mercy so sparingly and secretly that one never quite knew if one had done enough to be saved. Where Elizabeth saw good in all, Theophilus believed everyone was damned unless they found