Todays Artist Birthday goes to Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (1809 – 1871), painter and illustrator as well as the wife of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. She also published her journals and various articles. Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1809, in Salem, Massachusetts, and named after two of her aunts. Peabodys father was the dentist Nathaniel Peabody, while her mother was the strong Unitarian Elizabeth Palmer. She had three brothers; her sisters were Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, later Horace Manns wife. Her sister Elizabeth educated Sophia, focusing on geography, science, literature and both American and European history; eventually, she learned to read in Latin, French, Greek, Hebrew, and knew some German as well. Sophias health had been questionable since infancy and she was an occasional invalid. One possible cause was a fashionable treatment her dentist father prescribed for her teething pains that included mercury. In later life, she was a frequent user of calomel (mercury chloride) and opium to relieve her pain and migraines. When doctors pronounced Sophia had no discernible illness, she sought the rest therapy. She left for Cuba on December 4, 1833, with her sister Mary. Sophia first met Nathaniel Hawthorne through her sister, Elizabeth. When the author came to visit once, Elizabeth is said to have reported, He is handsomer than Lord Byron! When she urged Sophia to come downstairs to meet him, she laughed and said, If he has come once he will come again. After meeting her, Nathaniel wrote the tale Edward Randolph’s Portrait, which included an artist character inspired by Sophia Peabody named Alice Vane. Sophia had originally objected to marriage, partly because of her health. They became secretly engaged by New Years Day 1839. Sophia gave two of her paintings to Hawthorne in 1840 on the first anniversary of their engagement. Hawthorne valued the paintings so much that he hid them behind curtains to enjoy when he was alone. She had purposefully taken up drawing in 1829 and attended drawing parties which copied the works of other artists. She briefly studied sculpture with Shobal Vail Clevenger and produced a bas-relief medallion portrait of her dying brother George Peabody and, shortly thereafter, a similar work of Ralph Waldo Emersons dead brother Charles. Later, she tutored her daughter Rose in art. During their courtship, Sophia created an illustration for Nathaniels tale The Gentle Boy. After completing it, Sophia asked him if it looked like the main character, Ilbrahim. He answered, He will never look otherwise to me. The story was republished with Sophias illustration as The Gentle Boy: A Thrice Told Tale in December 1838, subsidized by a Salem hostess named Susan Burley. The book was dedicated to Sophia, inscribed: To Miss Sophia A. Peabody, this little tale, to which her kindred art has given value, is respectfully inscribed by the author. When Nathaniel moved to Boston, Sophia painted two landscapes to decorate his apartment. On January 2, 1840, he wrote to her, You cannot think how much delight those pictures are going to give me... I never owned a picture in my life. He later asked her to illustrate a reissue of his childrens book Grandfathers Chair. A wedding was scheduled for June 27, 1842, but was postponed when Sophia fell ill. On July 9, 1842, five years after first meeting, she and Nathaniel were married at 13 West Street in Boston, the Peabody bookstore. The day before, Nathaniel wrote to James Freeman Clarke asking him to oversee the ceremony. I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody tomorrow; and it is our mutual desire that you should perform the ceremony, he wrote. Both were considered relatively old for marriage (she was 32 and he was five days past his 38th birthday), but the coupling proved happy for both of them. Immediately after their wedding, they rented and moved into The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts. The next day, Hawthorne wrote to his sister Louisa: We are as happy as people can be, without making themselves ridiculous, and might be even happier; but, as a matter of taste, we choose to stop short at this point. Together the couple etched their impressions of their new married life in the glass of a window in the study using Sophias diamond ring: Mans accidents are Gods purposes. Sophia A. Hawthorne 1843 Nath Hawthorne This is his study The smallest twig leans clear against the sky Composed by my wife and written with her diamond Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3, 1843. In the Gold light. SAH On their first wedding anniversary, Nathaniel wrote to Sophia: We were never so happy as now—never such wide capacity for happiness, yet overflowing with all that the day and every moment brings to us. Methinks this birth-day of our married life is like a cape, which we have now doubled and find a more infinite ocean of love stretching out before us. Nathaniel Hawthorne died in May 1864 and Sophia was given the news by her sister Elizabeth Peabody, who had been informed by Franklin Pierce. Pierce, a close friend of Hawthorne, had been at the authors side when he died in his sleep. Sophia wrote about her husbands death to Annie Fields: My darling has gone over that Sapphire sea, and these grand soft waves are messages from his Eternal Rest. She moved to England four years later in 1868 with her three children. Sophia became ill in February 1871, diagnosed with typhoid pneumonia. She had difficulty breathing and was cared for by her daughters before dying on February 26. She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London on March 4. Una wrote to Julian that their mothers grave was on a sunny hillside looking towards the east... We had a head and footstone of white marble, with a place for flowers between, and Rose and I planted some ivy there that I had brought from America, and a periwinkle from papas grave. The inscription is—Sophia, wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne. When the grave site was in need of costly repair, it was suggested the remains be moved to the Hawthorne family plot in Concord, Massachusetts. In June 2006 the two were re-buried alongside Nathaniel in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. A funeral was held for the familys descendants with representatives from the Dominican Sisters and a public ceremony was held at The Old Manse to mark the occasion.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 15:01:09 +0000
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