Until recently, where Swamiji stayed during the sessions of the Parliament of Religions has been a mystery. Suddenly, however, floods of light have been thrown on the subject. Thanks to Cornelia Conger, a grand daughter of the Mr. and Mrs. John B. Lyon whom Swamiji mentions in the above letter, we learn that it was they who were his hosts during this period.

From about the middle of November we find his letters carrying the address of the Hales-541 Dearborn Avenue, Chicago-and thereafter the Hale house became his head¬quarters. The members of the Hale family looked upon him as an ever-welcome son and brother; and to him they were like his own. He often spoke of their loving kindness to him. But before this the Swami's permanent address was the Lyons's.

We have already told in some detail of his stay with Mr. and Mrs. Lyon when the Parliament was in session. We have also noted that even after the Parliament, when he moved about lecturing, his relationship with them was not severed; indeed, his letters show that at that later time he visited them at least twice. In her "Memoirs" of Swami Vivekananda, Cornelia Conger, granddaughter of the Lyons, throws some interesting sidelights on the Swami's personality, tastes and character. She wrote in part

Cornelia Conger was only six years old in 1893, but her memories of Swamiji are vivid, and her "Memoirs of Swami Vivekananda," which first appeared in. the Prabuddha Bharata of May 1956, give an invaluable picture of him at this important time in his life. It is to Swami Shankarananda, then President of the Ramakrishna Math and the Ramakrishna Mission in India, that we owe Miss Conger's article, for, having considered her memories "childish and trivial," she had been reluctant to give them written form. "But the Swami said something," Miss Conger writes, "infinitely kind and gracious which I shall never forget: That every great man is like a jewel with many facets. That each facet is important as it reflects a different aspect of his character." "So here," she continues, "is my very tiny `facet' offered in memory of someone I have loved for all these sixty-two years."

Before the Congress (or Parliament) of Religions met in Chicago at the time of the Columbian Exposition in 1893, members of various churches volunteered to ask into their homes as guests delegates to it. My grandmother, Mrs. John B. Lyon, was one of these, requesting, if possible, that a delegate who was broad-minded be sent to us as my grandfather was much interested in philosophy but heartily disliked bigots! Our home was 262, Michigan Avenue, a pleasant somewhat old-fashioned frame house, painted a [soft olive green. It had a porch on its side, and in summer we had red and white striped awnings and window boxes with red geraniums and white petunias. Big trees lined the street; there was a little back yard, and we had a kennel for our dogs and a little stable. It was all very nice and cosy. Its location was under the middle of what is today (1971) the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. The house] was full of guests all that summer [of 1893] as my grandparents were naturally hospitable and this World's Fair was a very exciting and fascinating affair. So all our out-of town relatives and friends were eager to come to Chicago to see it. When word came that our delegate was to arrive on a certain evening, the house was so crowded that my grandmother had to send her elder son to a friend's house to have his room for our guest. We had been given no idea who he would be nor even what religion he was representing. A message came that a member of our Church-the First Presbyterian [of which the Rev. John Henry Barrows was minister] -would bring him after midnight. Everyone went to bed except my grandmother who waited up to receive them. When she answered the doorbell, there stood Swami Vivekananda in a long yellow robe, a red sash, and a red turban-a very startling sight to her because she had probably never seen an East Indian before. She welcomed him warmly and showed him to his room. When she went to bed she was somewhat troubled. Some of our guests were Southerners, as we had many friends in the South, because we owned a sugar plantation on the Bayou Teche in Louisiana. Southerners have a strong dislike for as¬sociating with anyone but whites because they stupidly think of all people who are darker as on a mental and social plane of their former Negro slaves. My grandmother herself had no color prejudice and she was sufficiently intelligent anyway to know that Indians are of the same Caucasian inheritance as we are._x000d_ When my grandfather woke up, she told him of the problem and said he must decide whether it would be uncomfortable for Swami and for our Southern friends to be together. If so, she said he could put Swami up as our guest at the new Auditorium Hotel near us. My grandfather was dressed about half an hour before break¬fast and went into the library to read his morning paper. There he found Swami and, before breakfast was served, he came to my grandmother and said, "I don't care a bit, Emily, if all our guests leave! This Indian is the most brilliant and interesting man who has ever been in our home and he shall stay as long as he wishes." That began a warm friendship between them which was later summed up-much to my grandfather's embarrassment!-by having Swami calmly remark to a group of my grand father's friends one day at the Chicago Club: "I believe Mr. Lyon is the most Christ like man I ever met!"_x000d_ [Well, everybody loved him. He had a keen sense of humor and was very easy for all of us to get on with; my whole family was devoted to him. He and my grandfather got on very well. My grandfather wasn't what you'd call a religious person, but, as my grandmother said, he was deeply interested in philosophy. He and Swami would have long, long talks. Swami] seemed to feel especially dose to my grandmother, who reminded him of his own mother. She was short and very erect, with quiet dignity and assurance, excellent common sense, and a dry humor that he enjoyed. My mother, who was a pretty and charming young widow, and I-who was only six years old¬ lived with them. My grandmother and my mother at¬tended most of the meetings of the Congress of Religions and heard Swamiji speak there and later at lectures he gave. I know he helped my sad young mother who missed her young husband so much. Mother read and studied Swamiji's books later and tried to follow his teachings._x000d_ My memories are simply of him as a guest in our home -of a great personality who is still vivid to me! His brilliant eyes, his charming voice with the lilt of a slight well-bred Irish brogue, his warm smile! He told me en¬chanting stories of India, of monkeys and peacocks, and flights of bright green parrots, of banyan trees and masses of flowers, and markets piled with all colors of fruits and vegetables. To me they sounded like fairy stories, but now that I have driven over many hundreds of miles of Indian roads, I realize that he was simply describing scenes from the memories of his own boyhood. I used to rush up to him when he came into the house and cry, "Tell me another story, Swami," and climb into his lap. Perhaps, so far from home and in so strange a country, he found comfort in the love and enthusiasm of a child. He was always wonderful to me! Yet-because a child is sensitive -I can remember times when I would run into his room and suddenly know he did not want to be disturbed¬ when he was in meditation. He asked me many questions about what I learned in school and made me show him my school-books and pointed out India to me on the map-it was pink, I recall-and told me about his country. He seemed sad that little Indian girls did not have, in general, the chance to have as good an education as we American children. . . . My grandmother was president of the Women's Hospital in Chicago and he visited it with lively interest and asked for all the figures in infant mortality, etc. (He spoke not only to patients and doctors and nurses, but to the cooks and laundresses. He asked a thousand questions--everything about the hospital, and was so interested in it.]_x000d_ I was fascinated by his turban which struck me as a very funny kind of a hat, especially as it had to be wound up afresh every time he put it on! I persuaded him to let me see him wrap it back and forth around his head._x000d_ As our American food is less highly seasoned than Indian, my grandmother was afraid he might find it flat. (He told my grandmother that Ramakrishna had told him before he came to the West that he should] conform to all the customs and [eat] the food of his hosts, so he ate as we did. [When my grandmother asked him if there was anything special he wanted or couldn't have, he just said, "No, I'll take whatever you have."] My grandmother used to make a little ceremony of making salad dressing at the table and one of the condiments she used was Tabasco Sauce, put up by some friends of hers, the McIlhennys, in Louisiana. She handed him the bottle and said, "You might like a drop or two of this on your meat, Swami." He sprinkled it on with such a lavish hand that we all gasped and said, "But you can't do that! It's terribly hot!" He laughed and ate it with such enjoyment that a special bottle of the sauce was always put at his place after that._x000d_ My mother took him to hear his first Symphony Con¬cert on a Friday afternoon. He listened with great attention but with his head a bit on one side and a slightly quizzical expression. "Did you enjoy it?" mother asked at the end. "Yes, it was very beautiful," he replied, but mother felt it was said with some reservation. "What are you thinking?" she asked. "I am puzzled by two things," he answered. "First, I do not understand why the program says that this same program will be repeated on Saturday evening. You see in India, one type of music is played at dawn. The music for noontime is very different, and that for the evening is also of a special character. So I should think that what sounds suitable to your ears in the early afternoon would not sound harmonious to you at night. The other thing that seems strange to me is the lack of overtones in the music and the greater intervals between the notes. To my ears it has holes in it like that good Swiss cheese you give me!"_x000d_ When he began to give lectures, people offered him money for the work he hoped to do in India. He had no purse. So he used to tie it up in a handkerchief and bring it back-like a proud little boy!-pour it into my grand¬mother's lap to keep for him. She made him learn the different coins and to stack them up neatly and to count them. She made him write down the amount each time, and she deposited in her bank for him. He was overwhelmed by the generosity of his audience who seemed so happy to give to help people they had never seen so far away!_x000d_ Once he said to my grandmother that he had had the greatest temptation of his life in America. She liked to tease him a bit and said, "Who is she, Swami?" He burst out laughing and said "Oh, it is not a lady, it is Organiza¬tion!" He explained how the followers of Ramakrishna had all gone out alone and when they reached a village, would just quietly sit under a tree and wait for those in trouble to come to consult them. But in the States he saw how much could be accomplished by organizing work. Yet he was doubtful about just what type of organization would be acceptable to the Indian character and he gave a great deal of thought and study how to adapt what seemed good to him in our Western World to the best advantage of his own people. . . . I spoke earlier of his delightful slight Irish brogue. . . . My grandfather [once said to him, "You know, when I hear you speaking from the next room, I'd say I had a very cultivated Irish gentleman staying with me because of your accent." Swami was perfectly amazed. He said, "Nobody ever said that before!" Then he thought it over and said, "You know, my favorite professor in India was] an Irish gentle¬man, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. [I went to all his lectures and saw him a great deal. So probably, not being used to speaking English then, I unconsciously copied his accent "]_x000d_ After Swami left us, my mother was eager to do some studying along the lines of Oriental philosophy, as she realized she had not enough background to understand his teachings as fully as she wished. A Mrs. Peake held some classes in Chicago that following winter. And, in the course of them, mother discovered much to her sur¬prise that if she held a letter torn up into fine bits between her hands, she received a brief but vivid impression of the writer, both physically and mentally. When Swamiji returned to Chicago a year or so later to give lectures, mother asked him about this strange gift and he said he had it also, and that when he was young he used to have fun doing it to show off, but Ramakrishna had rapped his knuckles and said, "Don't use this great gift except for the good of mankind! Hands that receive these im-pressions can also bring relief from pain. Use this gift to bring healing!"_x000d_ On this second visit, he only stayed with us for a short time. He knew he could teach better if he lived in his own regime of food and of many hours for meditation. It also left him free to receive many who came to him For help. So my grandmother helped him find a simple but comfortable little flat, but I do not recall that I ever saw it._x000d_ Swamiji was such a dynamic and attractive personality that many women were quite swept away by him and made every effort by flattery to gain his interest. He was still young and, in spite of his great spirituality and his brilliance of mind, seemed to be very unworldly. This used to trouble my grandmother who feared he might be put in a false or uncomfortable position and she tried to caution him a little. Her concern touched and amused him and he patted her hand and said, "Dear Mrs. Lyon, you dear American mother of mine, don't be afraid for me! It is true I often sleep under a banyan tree with a bowl of rice given me by a kindly peasant, but it is equally true that I also am sometimes the guest in the palace of a great Maharajah and a slave girl is appointed to wave a peacock feather fan over me all night long! I am used to temptation and you need not fear for me!"_x000d_ . . . I asked my mother's sister, Katharine (Mrs. Robert W. Hamil) what she could add to my scattered memories. She was a bride and had her own home. So she was not at her mother's and father's so very much. She recalled Swamiji much as I did, but never heard him lecture. However, she and her husband were "young intellectuals" and had a group of young professors from our university, young newspaper men, etc. around them. One Sunday evening she was telling them how remarkable Swamiji was and they said that modern scientists and psychologists could "show up" his religious beliefs in no time! She said, "If I can persuade him to come here next Sunday evening, will you all come back and meet him?" They agreed and Swamiji met them all at an informal supper party. My aunt does not recall just what subjects were brought up, but that the entire evening was a lively and interesting debate on all sorts of ideas. Aunt Katharine said that Swamiji's great knowledge of the Bible and the Koran _x000d_ as well as the various Oriental religions, his grasp of science and of psychology were astounding. Before the evening was over the "doubting Thomases" threw up their hands and admitted that Swamiji had held his own on every point and they parted from him with warmest admiration and affection.

Years later, when Miss Conger had just turned eighty-four, she gave an informal talk to the members of the Chicago Vedanta Center, during which she again recollected all she could of Swamiji. "It is a memory," she said at the close, "that I've never forgotten. His was a most extraordinary, magnetic personality, and his picture in my mind is just as clear [as though it were yesterday]. I've never known anybody like him." During the course of her talk, Miss Conger related substantially the same memories as she had earlier written for Swami Shankarananda, but here and there a new detail emerged, which is inserted in brackets in the following quotation from her written "Memoirs" :