Sarah Jane (Mullen) Gast

She looked SO sad!

Her early life had been Dickensian, with inadequate food and shelter and all of the other issues that go with severe poverty. The one good thing she had going for her was the love of her new husband, who she married at the outbreak of the Civil War, on Dec. 31, 1860. She was my father's grandmother, and she used to say that she lived in anxiety throughout the War, concerned about her husband (who briefly served in the Union infantry before he left with severe respiratory problems) and about the very real threat that Confederate forces might advance far enough north of the Mason-Dixon Line to burn her new home in Lancaster, PA. Life after the war was mostly very happy. The story of the love between her and my great grandpa is inspiring to me. Despite enormous differences in ethnicity and religion, they made their marriage work and were utterly devoted to one another. Dad always used to say that the household of "Grandma Sally" was his one safe refuge from the troubles of the world.