personal side of Edison's life, to
which many incidental references have already been made in these pages.
He was married in 1873 to Miss Mary Stillwell, who died in 1884, leaving
three children--Thomas Alva, William Leslie, and Marion Estelle.

Mr. Edison was married again in 1886 to Miss Mina Miller, daughter of
Mr. Lewis Miller, a distinguished pioneer inventor and manufacturer in
the field of agricultural machinery, and equally entitled to fame as the
father of the "Chautauqua idea," and the founder with Bishop Vincent
of the original Chautauqua, which now has so many replicas all over the
country, and which started in motion one of the great modern educational
and moral forces in America. By this marriage there are three
children--Charles, Madeline, and Theodore.

For over a score of years, dating from his marriage to Miss Miller,
Edison's happy and perfect domestic life has been spent at Glenmont,
a beautiful property acquired at that time in Llewellyn Park, on the
higher slopes of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, within easy walking
distance of the laboratory at the foot of the hill in West Orange. As
noted already, the latter part of each winter is spent at Fort Myers,
Florida, where Edison has, on the banks of the Calahoutchie River, a
plantation home that is in many ways a miniature copy of the home and
laboratory up North. Glenmont is a rather elaborate and florid building
in Queen Anne English style, of brick, stone, and wooden beams showing
on the exterior, with an abundance of gables and balconies. It is set in
an environment of woods and sweeps of lawn, flanked by unusually large
conservatories, and always bright in summer with glowing flower beds. It
would be difficult to imagine Edison in a stiffly formal house, and this
big, cozy, three-story, rambling mansion has an easy freedom about it,
without and within, quite in keeping with the genius of the inventor,
but revealing at every turn traces of feminine taste and culture. The
ground floor, consisting chiefly of broad drawing-rooms, parlors, and
dining-hall, is chiefly noteworthy for the "den," or lounging-room, at
the end of the main axis, where the family and friends are likely to
be found in the evening hours, unless the party has withdrawn for more
intimate social intercourse to the interesting and fascinating private
library on the floor above. The lounging-room on the ground floor is
more or less of an Edison museum, for it is littered with souvenir