Kate Sanborn, Miss (Catherine)—American lady, a lecturer, a writer and also an enthusiastic hostess. Owner of a farm, “Breezy Meadows”, at Metcalf near Boston, Swamiji’s first home in America. He had met her on the train to Chicago from Vancouver. Worried about waiting at Chicago with inadequate funds at his disposal for the Parliament to begin several weeks later, he accepted her invitation and visited “Breezy Meadows” where he met men and women of culture and education who appreciated his worth, among them were Franklin Benjamin Sanborn and Prof. J. H. Wright who was instrumental in enabling Swamiji to be a delegate at the Parliament. Sanborn, a journalist, author, interested in Transcendentalism, invited him to speak at the “American Social Science Association” at Saratoga Springs in New York and he spoke on “The Mohammedan Rule in India” on 5.9.1993, the next morning on “The Use of Silver in India” and the topic of the evening lecture is not known. The fortnight at “Breezy Meadows” familiarized Swamiji with educated American society and his introduction to Prof. Wright was an incident of vital importance at that juncture.
Kate’s humble residence, ‘Breezy Meadows’ was an abandoned farm, which she adopted and turned into a beautiful, picturesque, and practical farm. Only twenty-five miles from Boston, it was an ideal rustic setting for a writer to retire to. ‘My heart’s delight’ she called it.
Kate Sanborn, the daughter of the learned Professor Sanborn of Dartmouth College, was born, it now seems, for two purposes: to be a writer and to open the door to Swamiji’s mission in America. Her strong and witty personality and her helpful nature won for her many friends.
“He (Swami Vivekananda) never minded the stares and grins that were most evident to me. ‘Shall I give up the costume of my forefathers?’ he sensibly inquired. ‘Shall you adopt the trailing robes of our women when you visit India?’ It is only our bad manners and ignorance that makes us think everything is queer, ludicrous, or wrong that differs from our own way.
“O dear: I cannot help laughing here all by myself at the remembrance of one evening when fully a dozen ladies were gathered around my honored guest, looking at him admiringly and at each other with approving words as he explained at length his creed and philosophy and plans for bringing the wretched masses in India out of their poverty and suffering by introducing a little of our practical way of earning money. Then he told us that, ‘the soul is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, and whose center can be everywhere, and that the universe is a power composed of the Great Infinite, and each separate world a distinct meter or rhythm.’
“My overstrained mind began to wobble, and I found I was sitting on the edge of my chair, with eyes aching from a prolonged stare of wonder, my mouth positively ajar… he talked on and on in glowing rhapsody, I listening intently to the marvelous eloquence … I left the circle to indulge in immoderate, half-hysteric laughter all alone. I had achieved success, but I, too, had to ‘struggle’.
“He called me ‘mother’ at parting – an especial tribute to any woman in India, as he explained. I appreciated the compliment. I was proud of such a son….”
Although Swamiji complained to Alasinga (in his letter of the 20th of August 1893) that he was being shown off as a curio from India, Kate’s motives seem to have been sincere. Judging from her reminiscences, she really did struggle to keep her promise to help him; and she did not forget him.
….But most important was the introduction by the Sanborns to Dr. Wright, Professor of Greek at Harvard. He was so much impressed with Swamiji that he undertook all the arrangements for Swamiji to be an official delegate to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. This official introduction was the very crux of his mission.
When Kate Sanborn died in July, 1917, an article about her appeared in the Boston Transcript on the 9th of July, which said: “Her controlling impulse seemed to be the wish to be of service to those about her especially to those who most needed her help.” Everyone who wrote of her wrote how gracious she was to her guests. On one of the walls of her house was hung her motto:
Let me, also, cheer a spot,
Hidden field or garden grot,
Place where passing souls may rest,
On the way, be their best.
Kate Sanborn gave Swamiji her best.