Happy Father’s Day

“O dearest, dearest boy! My heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn”

From Anecdote for Fathers by William Wordsworth (whom Emerson met visiting Europe in 1833).

While Father’s Day did not officially commence until 1910, fathers have always been an important part of the family unit.

Mr. Emerson was descended from strong and committed men. Emerson’s grandfather William was a minister who was involved in the battle at the North Bridge in Concord in 1775 and became chaplain to the colonial army. His father was also a minister, at the First Church in Boston from 1799 to 1811. His step-grandfather, Ezra Ripley, was the minister in Concord and, as a boy, Emerson often stayed with Ezra and his grandmother.

Emerson’s father died when Emerson was only eight years old. The family’s long history influenced Emerson’s decision to join the ministry himself in 1828. His father’s preaching and literary efforts certainly also had an effect on his son.

Emerson was the father of four children, Waldo, Ellen, Edith and Edward. He was a devoted father who always had time for his offspring. Waldo, the first born, unfortunately succumbed to scarlet fever at the age of five. As a little boy he often would follow his father into the garden and watch his father struggle to work with tools effectively. On one occasion Waldo told his father, “Papa, I am afraid you will dig your leg.”

Ellen recalled “By the time I was eleven I began to ask questions…I remember not only the immense pleasure I was having…and how good it was of Father to go into the business so minutely and faithfully, and evidently to have as good a time as I did over.”

“I have always thought my Father was very wise in his dealing with children,“ Edith wrote. “…if at table we were disputing, not quite pleasant, silly or giggling, my Father used to say ‘Edith, run out to the front gate and look at the clouds.’ It was a charming diversion.” On Sundays, Emerson took his children on long walks in the woods, pointing out flowers, tree types and sharing the names of the birds and their songs.

Edward remarked that his father, “…had the grace to leave to his children, after they began to grow up, the responsibility of deciding in more important questions concerning themselves, for which they cannot be too grateful to him; he did not command or forbid, but laid the principles and the facts before us and left the case in our hands.”

“His written and spoken words reached young people...and often brought them to him for counsel, and it was this: ‘Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.’”

Happy Birthday Mr. Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on May 25, 1803. He was one of eight children born to William Emerson and Ruth Haskins. His father William was a Unitarian Minister in Boston at the First Church.

Unfortunately, Emerson’s father passed away when Emerson was only eight years old and there after he moved many times with his Mother and siblings between Boston and Concord. A very good listener even as a young boy, Emerson absorbed teachings by ministers who visited the Emerson home, his aunts Mary Moody Emerson, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley and others.

Emerson entered Harvard in 1817 at the age of fourteen – the common age for entering freshmen back then. He was described by professors as “calm and quiet in his manners; and no matter how much he felt externally he was never moved or excited.” Commencing on a lifetime of writing, he started his journal while at Harvard and continued it for the rest of his life. In his senior year he decided he wanted to be called Waldo (an Emerson family name) not Ralph and he was Waldo Emerson from then on.

After a brief career teaching, Emerson entered the ministry, being ordained in 1829. That same year he married Ellen Tucker and accepted a position as leader of the Second Church in Boston. Sadly Ellen succumbed to tuberculosis in 1831 after only a year and a half of marriage. By 1832 Emerson decided to leave the ministry and sailed for Europe to try to recover from his grief.

While in Europe he met William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Walter Landor and Thomas Carlyle, who became an influence on Emerson and lifelong friend. Carlyle described Emerson as “a beautiful transparent soul.”

Returning to America Emerson embarked on his new career as a lecturer that would become his major source of income for the next forty plus years. His brother Charles, hearing Emerson’s first lecture on “The Uses of Natural History,” remarked he “was glad to have some of the stump lecturers see what was what & bow to the rising sun.”

Emerson married Lydia Jackson in 1835 and they had four children. He purchased a home on Cambridge Turnpike before the wedding and they lived for the rest of their married life; he for 47 years, she for 57.

After the publication of his essay “Nature,” Emerson became a prolific writer of essays and poems, as well as a strenuous schedule of lecturing across America and in Europe.

Emerson made enormous contributions to America’s place in intellectual literature – his “American Scholar” address was described by Oliver Wendell Holmes as America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence.” He had an innate ability to reach people with his words and turned Concord, MA into the literary capital of America. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Franklin Sanborn, the Alcotts, Elizabeth Peabody, Margaret Fuller and others either moved to Concord or ensured they spent as much time as possible to be near this kind, generous and brilliant man.

Ellen Tucker Emerson

Ellen Tucker Emerson was born on February 24, 1839. She was the Emersons’ second child. Ellen was named after Emerson’s first wife (who died of TB). In 1853, Ellen was sent to Mrs. Sedgwick’s School for Young Ladies in Lenox MA, and subsequently attended the Agassiz School in Cambridge, MA and Frank Sanborn’s school in Concord.

Starting in her early teens, Ellen was an enthusiastic letter writer and told her father that her letters were her journal. Emerson encouraged his family and acquaintances to keep journals, as he did for most of his life. Fortunately, many of Ellen’s letters have been saved, providing insight into family life. She understood as the oldest daughter her role in helping her parents. On leaving the Sedgwick School she wrote, “I am going home to keep house and give Mother rest, I think it is just like going different roads.”

Living her entire life in the Emerson home on Cambridge Turnpike, Ellen was very active in Concord’s community. She taught Sunday School at First Parish Church for more than 40 years; was the first woman elected to Concord’s School Committee; and organized many of the town’s social events. Always close to her sister Edith and brother Edward, Ellen provided Edith with welcome support at each of her eight births.

Ellen traveled the world with her father on his lecture tours and as he aged helped him to ensure he didn’t lose his place while speaking. She also assisted author and philosopher James Elliot Cabot (who was Emerson’s literary executor) with his biography of her father, A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Additionally, she wrote a biography of her mother, The Life of Lidian Jackson Emerson. Her mother was often unwell and Ellen by necessity managed the household herself.

In 1868 Ellen was sent to the Azores for a rest, staying with John Bass Dabney and his family. He was the US Consul General in the Azores at Fayal. She enjoyed the Azores and the Portuguese people immensely and her health returned. To great pleasure, Ellen took many donkey rides, a common mode of transportation. Subsequently she was sent a donkey of her own to Concord from the Azores as a gift. The donkey was named Gloriosa and Ellen would occasionally ride her to town for errands.

Ellen was surrounded in Concord with the nineteenth-century literary elite, including Henry David Thoreau and the Alcotts. In a letter home from the Azores in 1869, she writes, “Little Women has been sent out to me and I am about to read it…I just lent it to the Dabney children and they enjoy it. Louisa has always been the most lively and original girl, and her three sisters were all bright and able to help in all her scheme, and their childhood and youth were full of the most amazing and interesting works and plays.”

Ellen passed away at the age of 69 in 1909. She was the last Emerson family member to live in the home on Cambridge Turnpike. The house is owned by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, a non-profit organization founded and maintained by Emerson descendants.

Edward Waldo Emerson

Edward Waldo Emerson was the last of Ralph Waldo and Lidian’s four children. He was born on July 10, 1844 and died on January 27, 1930.

The Emerson’s first son, Waldo, sadly died of Scarlet Fever at the age of five before Edward was born. The two daughters, Ellen and Edith were born between Waldo and Edward.

Edward attended Harvard University but due to health issues left for a period and then graduated in 1866 as Class Poet. He received his medical degree from Harvard in 1874 and set up his practice in Concord, where he lived for virtually his entire life.

Edward left the medical profession in 1882, the year his father died. Like his father, Edward was a writer and a lecturer. Written works included Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend (written in 1917), and Emerson in Concord (1888). He was largely responsible for editing his father’s many manuscripts and some of his correspondence after Emerson’s death.

Providing wonderful insights about his father, Edward wrote, “He had the grace to leave to his children, after they began to grow up, the responsibility of deciding in more important questions concerning themselves, for which they cannot be too grateful to him; he did not command or forbid, but laid the principles and the facts before us and left the case in our hands.” Additionally, Edward shared his father’s advice to many young people, “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

An accomplished painter, Edward also taught art anatomy at the Museum of Fine Arts school. He served as Superintendent of Schools in Concord, on the Board of Health and the Cemetery Committee. He was also a founding member of the Concord Antiquarian Society (now the Concord Museum) and a member of Concord’s Social Circle.

He married Annie Keyes (also a lifelong Concord resident) in 1874 and they had seven children.

Edward Waldo Emerson and his brother Waldo died 88 years apart but on the same day, January 27.

Edith Emerson

The Emerson’s third child Edith was born on November, 22, 1841. The younger, sociable daughter married William Hathaway Forbes at the age of twenty-three, with her sister Ellen recording, “…down the walk went little Edith Emerson in her brown hat and dress, away from her father’s house for evermore…” Edith left a felt absence in the household. Birthday wishes were sent with invitations to come home a few days later for Thanksgiving, with her growing family, which eventually included eight children.

By the mid-19th century, Thanksgiving was a well-established and principal New England holiday, rooted in the combined tradition of Puritan thanks-giving fast days and harvest festival feasts. The date of annual celebrations was not fixed until 1863, and was celebrated irregularly from September through December. It was traditionally a day of charity and giving to the less fortunate. It was an important celebration in Emerson’s family, often held over two days into what he called, “Good Friday” and his daughter Ellen referred to as “Second Thanksgiving.

The first Thanksgiving celebrated at the Emerson House on Cambridge Turnpike, was likely in November 1836, about a month after Ralph Waldo and Lidian’s first child, Waldo, was born. Emerson delivered a sermon in Lexington, and hosted his step-grandfather, Concord’s Reverend Ezra Ripley, and his aunt Sarah Ripley for dinner. Starting in 1849, the Emerson’s regularly filled their home with extended relations. Twenty to thirty members of the Jackson and Emerson-Ripley families gathered in the Emerson dining room for a meal that lasted nearly three hours.

Preparations began weeks beforehand. The rooms were cleaned, the furniture rearranged, the silver polished, as many as fifty pies baked, and the raisins were de-stoned for hours the night before. Minced turnovers were served for breakfast, with a special duck-turn-over for Emerson (a favorite from his childhood). A typical Emerson family Thanksgiving dinner included: vermicelli soup, roasted turkeys and chickens, escalloped oysters, squash, cranberry sauce, sweet and white potatoes, and macaroni. Port, sherry, claret, and ale were served, while Edith’s small children drank their milk from wine glasses. For dessert plum pudding, mince, apple, squash, and pumpkin pies, followed by coffee, fruits and nuts. A “flaming pudding” was a highlight and a tradition since 1846. The men then retired to the study for after-dinner cigars, and games such as blind-man’s bluff and rhyming charades ensued in the parlor and study. There were also annual poetry recitals, singing, and music at the piano (which was moved into Emerson’s study).

As for so many of us this year, it was not every year that the family could all be together. Emerson’s lecture tours kept him from home several years. In 1866, Lidian wrote her son Edward, “Says Ellen, ‘What is Thanksgiving without Lizzie Simmons and Edward!’” Ellen wrote, “If other Thanksgivings are to be like this what shall we do? Well, I will stop lamenting…” (Letters). In 1871, Lidian and Ellen were unexpectedly the only members of the family at home --- with fifty pies!

Whether together or far-apart, the Emerson’s were grateful for the well-being of their loved ones, sharing love and memories across the miles. As Emerson wrote in his essay “Friendship,” “I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.” We sent grateful wishes to you and yours for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Ellen Louisa Tucker

On September 30, 1829, Emerson married Ellen Louisa Tucker. They had met when he was preaching in Concord, New Hampshire and fell deeply in love. Ellen was 16 when they met (Emerson 24), beautiful, wrote poetry and had a strong appreciation for nature. Unfortunately, she also had tuberculosis. Emerson wrote shortly after they were engaged in December 1828, “I have now been four days engaged to Ellen Louisa Tucker. Will my Father in Heaven regard us with kindness, and as he hath, as we trust, made us for each other, will he be pleased to strengthen and purify and prosper and eternize our affection!” The year they were married Emerson also accepted the offer from the Second Church in Boston to be their Minister, and Ellen and Emerson moved to Boston after their wedding. Sadly Ellen’s health declined rapidly and she died in Boston on February 8, 1831. Ellen is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA, with the Tuckers.

Emerson wrote after her death, “Will the eye that was closed on Tuesday ever beam again in the fullness of love on me? Shall I ever be able to connect the face of outward nature, the mists of the morn, the star of eve, the flowers and all poetry with the heart and life of an enchanting friend? No. There is one birth and baptism and one first love and the affections cannot keep their youth any more than men.”

In 1835, Emerson married Lydia Jackson (first name changed to Lidian after marriage), his wife for 47 years and the mother of his four children.

Lidian Jackson Emerson

Emerson’s wife, Lydia Jackson, was born on September 20, 1802 in Plymouth, MA to Charles Jackson and Lucy Cotton. Lydia was one of seven children, only three surviving to adulthood, Lucy, Lydia and Charles. Lydia’s parents died when she was sixteen, occurring within two months of each other. She and her siblings, when not at school, boarded with aunts and uncles. Lydia was very fond of poetry, an avid reader and very concerned about the welfare of others. She also cared deeply about animals and was an early Vice President of the Dumb Animals Society (later the MSPCA).

She married Ralph Waldo Emerson on September 14, 1835 (the 200th anniversary of the founding of Concord) and was the mother of his four children; Waldo, Ellen, Edith and Edward. At Emerson’s suggestion she became Lidian, rather than Lydia. Over their 47 years of marriage she supported her husband’s work and helped to entertain the constant stream of guests, who came to see Emerson for discussions, advice and plans. Guests included the literary and artistic elite of the day, William Ellery Channing, Daniel Chester French, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell, Walt Whitman and Emerson’s dear friend Henry David Thoreau.

Lidian was not afraid to be involved with causes she felt important. Outraged by the injustice shown to slaves, in 1837 Lidian, Abigail Alcott, Mary Merrick Brooks, Mrs. John Thoreau (Henry’s mother) and others formed Concord’s Female Anti-Slavery Society, a very active group that influenced those with strong voices (Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott) to support their efforts and become more vocal. She also worked for women’s rights and the rights of Native Americans.

Lidian outlived her husband by ten years and passed away in 1892, still living at the their home on Cambridge Turnpike with her daughter Ellen Tucker Emerson.

Emerson Marries Lydia Jackson

On September 14, 1835, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Lydia Jackson were married in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Emerson’s first wife Ellen Louisa Tucker passed away of tuberculosis in 1831. Emerson (living in Concord at the Old Manse) proposed to Lydia via letter, beseeching her to love him. She wrote a response but then asked him to come to Plymouth so she could read it to him in person. After their discussion – she had concerns about her worthiness and the enormous changes it would bring – she accepted.

Lydia wrote and read poetry and was in one mind with Emerson’s thoughts. Emerson wrote “I am persuaded that I address one so in love with what I love…that an affection founded on such a basis cannot alter.” They were married for 47 years until his death and had four children together.

Fearing that New Englanders might refer to her as “Lydiar Emerson” based on pronunciations of the day, Emerson started to call her Lidian, which was her name for the rest of her life. They married in Plymouth at Winslow House, the Jackson family home. Lydian preferred that they settle in Plymouth but Emerson disagreed. “Wherever I go therefore I guard & study my rambling propensities with a care that is ridiculous to people, but to me is the care of my high calling. Now Concord is only one of a hundred towns in which I could find these necessary objects but Plymouth I fear is not one. Plymouth is streets; I live in the wide champaign.”

They moved in the home he purchased on Cambridge Turnpike on September 15, 1835 and lived there for the rest of their lives. It quickly became the center of literary and Transcendental thinking, discussions and writing.