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Roses in December
This is the autobiography of author Frances Parkinson Keyes, who was my great-grandmother's first cousin. She was born in 1885, and it was published in 1960, but she frequently refers to contemporary family letters, so there is possibly less memory-error than in some similar memoirs. (Now I want to go to New Orleans to see if they have her papers at Beauregard House!)
Taken as a whole the book is sort of fascinating in its Henry James-esque story of America vs. old Europe, social climbing through husbandry, and such-like. Keyes mother was - well, a woman with Goals and Means of Achieving Them. If I'd been her daughter, I too might have married as soon as it was legal for me to do so. Below are some passages specific to my family history.
The edition and pagination I am working from is an Avon paperback, published in 1965 (5th printing, 1972).
p. 11 "In the end, the decision [of what to name the newborn Keyes] was left to her [the baby's mother.] "Then I shall name her for the finest woman I have ever known," she said. It is seldom that a mother-in-law receives such a a tribute from her son's wife; but very early I came to understand the reasons for this. My paternal grandmother [Frances Cochran Parkinson Wheeler, my great-great-great grandmother], whose story I have told before and and shall tell again in due course, was undoubtedly not only the finest woman my mother had ever known but probably as fine a one as it is possible for any human creature to be." [Wow!]
The namesake wrote the new infant [who was born in Charlottesville VA]a letter, reproduced on p. 12-13:
N. Woburn, MA
July 29, 1885
My dear, precious, little Frances:
I hardly dare approach you, so fresh from Heaven, with my garments soiled and travel-worn by my long pilgrimage. Still I hope you have brought so much of the spirit of Heaven with you, that you will bid me welcome when I tell you that I am your grandma and that I thank God all the time that He has let you come to this world. [Keyes' parents had had a stillborn son and a miscarriage in their marriage, before Frances' birth.] It seems to me that, though I am getting old, and wayworn, I was never so happy as now. I am just glad, glad, glad, all the time. I am sure you have brought much of blessing to your dear papa and mama. I can distinctly hear your Father in Heaven saying to them, 'Take this child and nurse it for me and I will pay you your wages.' I have no doubt they hear the same voice and will so listen and obey, that they will rejoice with never-ending joy, over the new treasure they now possess. Your grandma wants to see you more than she can tell you in words, but will try to wait patiently. She is very happy in having your little cousin, Avis Wheeler Hill [my great-grandmother, born earlier that year, who lived in the same house], with her, She grows every day and seems a healthy and happy child. Your Uncle Edward has just made your Aunt Carrie a visit and he says your Cousin Helen is a very beautiful child. It will be very nice when you three little cousins, who have all come to us within one short year, can come together and play in grandma's great halls.
Please give much love to your papa and mama and write me a letter as soon as you can. I shall be glad to hear from you every day."
p. 15 brings a long sketch of Keyes's father's,and thus my, ancestry.
"Both his paternal and his maternal ancestors were distinguished for their patriotism, piety, and learning. Among them were numerous officers in both the French and Indian and the Revolutionary wars; graduates of both Princeton - or Nassau Hall as it was then termed - and Harvard; the headmasters of of two outstanding private schools for boys; clergymen, lawyers, and judges. But none had been rich in worldly goods. John Wheeler himself was the son of a Congregational minister, Gilbert Melancthon Wheeler, a graduate of Union College at Schenectady. Melancthon Wheeler had been twice married and had become the father of eight children [i.e. who lived; see the previous post], all of when received a college education [even the New Zealand seafarer?], though the ministerial salary never exceeded a thousand dollars a year. My grandmother, Frances Parkinson - herself a brilliant classical scholar - was Melancthon's second wife and the mother of his five younger children - Elizabeth, John, Caroline, Frances, and Edward. They were all good-looking and all blessed with exuberant health and spirits. But, as their mother considered wholly inadequate the educational opportunities in the various small towns where her husband's parsonages were successively located, she supplemented her children's lessons at school with the lessons she gave them herself. It was her proud boast that by the time he was seven her elder son - stocky, red-headed John - knew practically all the Latin irregular verbs and could conjugate them unaided, from memory! [Damn, I knew I was raising Casper wrong.] Be that as it may, when the boy was twelve or so, the principal of Warren academy, in Woburn, caused to be printed in a local paper a problem in calculus which none of his own pupils had been able to solve and offered free tuition to anyone who could give the correct answer. John promptly furnished this and, with his departure from the inadequate public school and his triumphant entrance into the well-known academy, his mother's fears regarding his proper preparation for college were set at rest, as well they might have been: he was both salutatorian and valedictorian of his graduating class - a strange departure from established custom! - and entered Harvard at the age of fifteen, armed with inexhaustible energy, an oil lamp, a five-dollar bill, and his father's blessing."
Lots more about John Wheeler's career, and then death - Henry Cabot Lodge was a pallbearer at his funeral, and Charles Eliot of Harvard wrote referring to him as "the foremost classical scholar of his age", and then Keyes' maternal ancestry.
Taken as a whole the book is sort of fascinating in its Henry James-esque story of America vs. old Europe, social climbing through husbandry, and such-like. Keyes mother was - well, a woman with Goals and Means of Achieving Them. If I'd been her daughter, I too might have married as soon as it was legal for me to do so. Below are some passages specific to my family history.
The edition and pagination I am working from is an Avon paperback, published in 1965 (5th printing, 1972).
p. 11 "In the end, the decision [of what to name the newborn Keyes] was left to her [the baby's mother.] "Then I shall name her for the finest woman I have ever known," she said. It is seldom that a mother-in-law receives such a a tribute from her son's wife; but very early I came to understand the reasons for this. My paternal grandmother [Frances Cochran Parkinson Wheeler, my great-great-great grandmother], whose story I have told before and and shall tell again in due course, was undoubtedly not only the finest woman my mother had ever known but probably as fine a one as it is possible for any human creature to be." [Wow!]
The namesake wrote the new infant [who was born in Charlottesville VA]a letter, reproduced on p. 12-13:
N. Woburn, MA
July 29, 1885
My dear, precious, little Frances:
I hardly dare approach you, so fresh from Heaven, with my garments soiled and travel-worn by my long pilgrimage. Still I hope you have brought so much of the spirit of Heaven with you, that you will bid me welcome when I tell you that I am your grandma and that I thank God all the time that He has let you come to this world. [Keyes' parents had had a stillborn son and a miscarriage in their marriage, before Frances' birth.] It seems to me that, though I am getting old, and wayworn, I was never so happy as now. I am just glad, glad, glad, all the time. I am sure you have brought much of blessing to your dear papa and mama. I can distinctly hear your Father in Heaven saying to them, 'Take this child and nurse it for me and I will pay you your wages.' I have no doubt they hear the same voice and will so listen and obey, that they will rejoice with never-ending joy, over the new treasure they now possess. Your grandma wants to see you more than she can tell you in words, but will try to wait patiently. She is very happy in having your little cousin, Avis Wheeler Hill [my great-grandmother, born earlier that year, who lived in the same house], with her, She grows every day and seems a healthy and happy child. Your Uncle Edward has just made your Aunt Carrie a visit and he says your Cousin Helen is a very beautiful child. It will be very nice when you three little cousins, who have all come to us within one short year, can come together and play in grandma's great halls.
Please give much love to your papa and mama and write me a letter as soon as you can. I shall be glad to hear from you every day."
p. 15 brings a long sketch of Keyes's father's,and thus my, ancestry.
"Both his paternal and his maternal ancestors were distinguished for their patriotism, piety, and learning. Among them were numerous officers in both the French and Indian and the Revolutionary wars; graduates of both Princeton - or Nassau Hall as it was then termed - and Harvard; the headmasters of of two outstanding private schools for boys; clergymen, lawyers, and judges. But none had been rich in worldly goods. John Wheeler himself was the son of a Congregational minister, Gilbert Melancthon Wheeler, a graduate of Union College at Schenectady. Melancthon Wheeler had been twice married and had become the father of eight children [i.e. who lived; see the previous post], all of when received a college education [even the New Zealand seafarer?], though the ministerial salary never exceeded a thousand dollars a year. My grandmother, Frances Parkinson - herself a brilliant classical scholar - was Melancthon's second wife and the mother of his five younger children - Elizabeth, John, Caroline, Frances, and Edward. They were all good-looking and all blessed with exuberant health and spirits. But, as their mother considered wholly inadequate the educational opportunities in the various small towns where her husband's parsonages were successively located, she supplemented her children's lessons at school with the lessons she gave them herself. It was her proud boast that by the time he was seven her elder son - stocky, red-headed John - knew practically all the Latin irregular verbs and could conjugate them unaided, from memory! [Damn, I knew I was raising Casper wrong.] Be that as it may, when the boy was twelve or so, the principal of Warren academy, in Woburn, caused to be printed in a local paper a problem in calculus which none of his own pupils had been able to solve and offered free tuition to anyone who could give the correct answer. John promptly furnished this and, with his departure from the inadequate public school and his triumphant entrance into the well-known academy, his mother's fears regarding his proper preparation for college were set at rest, as well they might have been: he was both salutatorian and valedictorian of his graduating class - a strange departure from established custom! - and entered Harvard at the age of fifteen, armed with inexhaustible energy, an oil lamp, a five-dollar bill, and his father's blessing."
Lots more about John Wheeler's career, and then death - Henry Cabot Lodge was a pallbearer at his funeral, and Charles Eliot of Harvard wrote referring to him as "the foremost classical scholar of his age", and then Keyes' maternal ancestry.