Longwood College - Virginian Yearbook (Farmville, VA)

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DR. JOHN A. CUNNINGHAM, A. M,, LL. D.

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Shetcb of 2)r. John H. Cunningbam, H. m ,, %%, H). IN undertaking to sketch the Hfe of a valued friend, it is difificult to avoid one of two evils — to allow our affections to carry us into seeming extravagance, or, for the sake of apparent partiality to fail to bring out fully all the virtues of one who, it may be is worthy of heartfelt admiration, and often of imitation. It is our sincere desire to set forth this man as he was ; to show to those who knew him not, how noble and generous and sym- pathetic a nature he possessed, how full of earnest purpose, of unselfish impulse, to bring back to those who knew him and have lost him the real presence of the man with all his stimulating words, his ever helpful influence. John A. Cunningham was born in Richmond, June 24, 1846. His father Dr. John A. Cunning- ham, who graduated at Harvard and completed his education in Europe, was for many years a prominent physician in Richmond, but retired from active life in 1870, and spent his last years with his brother, Mr. Richard A. Cunningham, at Elkwood, Culpeper county. His mother, Miss Mary John- ston, was a first cousin of General Joseph E. John- ston, and was also a person of talent. The affection and intimacy existing between her and her youngest son was vmusual in kind and degree, and her memory was fondly cherished till the day of his death. To her he seems to have owed the emotional side of his nature, his buoyant and hope- ful spirit, his tender and ready sympathy, as well as his faculty for government and clear insight into character. From his father he inherited his posi- tive and open expressions of like and dislike, his high spirit, his keen sense of honor and his chival- rous abhorrence of injustice and oppression. As a child he vas delicate and spent much time in reading to his mother, who was almost blind. Being a woman of rare intellect, the little boy was