NORTHWESTERN STORY—HEROISM.

NORTHWESTERN STORY—HEROISM. Northwestern appears to be a typical middle-sized Midwestern university, but as with any location where people have been, there is the romance of past lives. Forty years or so ago, when I was a student, there was a plaque on one of the buildings that moved me every time I passed it. It commemorated a student at Garrett Theological Seminary, which is enclosed by the Northwestern campus, who had rescued a large number of shipwreck victims from Lake Michigan. I remember from the plaque that he had swum out to rescue each victim and bring him back, that his health was broken by the effort and that he kept asking when his effort stopped, “Did I do my best?” I found this link which fills in some details that I had forgotten. His name was Edward Spencer, the ship was The Lady Elgin, the year was 1860 and 287 people died in the wreck. Spencer saved 18 people and “was allegedly confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”