Marmee & Louisa (65 page)

¹²²⁰
AAP’s purchase of house: ABA, May 28, 1877,
Journals
, 477.

¹²²¹
“She has
her
wish”: LMA, April 1877,
Journals
, 204–5.

¹²²²
In August she forced: ABA to Mary N. Adams, September 17, 1877,
Letters
, 697.

¹²²³
“our housekeeper”: ABA to Mary N. Adams, September 17, 1877,
Letters
, 697.

¹²²⁴
“beginning of my ascension”: Mary Hosmer Brown, in
Alcott in Her Own Time
, Daniel Shealy, ed., 219.

¹²²⁵
finally achieved “social standing”: ABA, June 27, 1877,
Journals
, 477.

¹²²⁶
The doctor came: ABA to AMAN, November 25, 1877,
Letters
, 704. Three times a day Doctor Joseph Cook came to the house to see AMA.

¹²²⁷
“Stay by, Louie:” LMA, October 1877,
Journals
, 205.

¹²²⁸
“quietly and persistently”: LMA,
Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag
, 7–27.

¹²²⁹
display in the Paris Salon: ABA, October 8, 1877,
Journals
, 479–80, and LMA, “Notes & Memoranda for 1877,”
Journals
, 206.

¹²³⁰
turned down a page: In Alcott family Bible at Orchard House, examined by author in 2011.

¹²³¹
AMA moved to Anna’s house: ABA to AMAN, November 18, 1877, and December 9, 1877,
Letters
, 703 and 706.

¹²³²
“The power that brought me”: ABA to Mary Adams, January 27, 1878,
Letters
, 710, quoting AMA.

¹²³³
Abigail rejoiced: ABA to AMAN, November 25, 1877,
Letters
, 704.

¹²³⁴
closed her mother’s eyes: ABA, November 25, 1877,
Journals
, 480.

¹²³⁵
“who owed her most”: LMA to Louise Chandler Moulton, n.d., family letters, HAP.

¹²³⁶
“The dream came true”: LMA, in Cheney,
LMA: Life, Letters and Journals
, 24.

¹²³⁷
AMA burial: ABA
Letters
give two different days for burial, November 26 and 27, 1877.

¹²³⁸
“wish to be laid”: AMA, March 14, 1877, Diary for 1876–1877, HAP.

¹²³⁹
Louisa noted: LMA, November 1878,
Journals
, 206.

¹²⁴⁰
details of AMA funeral: ABA to AMAN, December 27, 1877,
Letters
, 707. ABA to Mary Adams, January 27, 1878,
Letters
, 710. ABA to Eliza Leggett, January 29, 1878,
Letters
, 712.

¹²⁴¹
“must feel
identified
for ever”: EPP to LMA, December 1877,
Letters of EPP
, Bruce Ronda, ed., 382–83.

¹²⁴²
“race for matrimony”: AMAN to her family, December 12, 1876, in Ticknor,
May Alcott, A Memoir
, 153.

¹²⁴³
a young Swiss man: ABA to AMAN, November 18, 1877,
Letters
, 703.

¹²⁴⁴
only twenty-eight: Catherine Rivard told me that AMAN’s death certificate gave her age at death as seven years younger than her actual age of 39. Her husband, who would have provided the year of her birth, apparently believed she was born in 1847.

¹²⁴⁵
“how [Abigail] married for love”: AMAN to her family, spring 1878, displayed in the master bedroom of Orchard House in 2011. Quoted in Ticknor,
May Alcott, A Memoir
, 268.

¹²⁴⁶
definition of a philosopher: LMA, in Cheney,
LMA: Life, Letters and Journals
, 228.

¹²⁴⁷
“do not seem to . . . like the marriage”: EPP to Ellen Conway, April 27, 1878,
Letters of EPP
, 385.

¹²⁴⁸
“May is old enough”: LMA, March 1878,
Journals
, 209.

¹²⁴⁹
femme de ménage
: Ticknor,
May Alcott, A Memoir
, 277.

¹²⁵⁰
“How different our lives”: LMA, March 1878,
Journals
, 209.

¹²⁵¹
“I need nothing but”: LMA, January 1878,
Journals
, 209. See also ABA to AMAN, June 8, 1878,
ABA Letters
, 726, and ABA to Daniel Ricketson, April 24, 1878,
ABA Letters
, 719.

¹²⁵²
reviewing Abigail’s journals: ABA to Mary Adams, January 27, 1878,
Letters
, 710. ABA to AMAN, June 8, 1878,
Letters
, 726. ABA to Daniel Ricketson, April 24, 1878,
Letters
, 719.

¹²⁵³
“biography is not in my line”: LMA to W. T. Harris, January 7 [1881],
Letters
, 251.

¹²⁵⁴
unexpectedly painful: ABA to AMAN, November 29, 1878,
Letters
, 740.

¹²⁵⁵
His “heart bled”: Odell Shepard,
ABA Journals
, introduction to 1877, 483.

¹²⁵⁶
copied in his own hand: Some entries from AMA’s journals 1841–1844 appear in ABA’s published diaries.

¹²⁵⁷
“Ah me!”: ABA, June 10–14, 1878,
Journals
, 490–91.

¹²⁵⁸
“a bushel of diaries”: LMA to Louise C. Moulton, n.d., family letters, HAP.

¹²⁵⁹
“Poor dear woman!!”: LMA, footnote to November 29, 1843, AMA journals, in
ABA Journals
, 149.

¹²⁶⁰
Robert Niles would publish: ABA to William Harris, October 5, 1878,
Letters
, 737.

¹²⁶¹
“Memoir will detain her”: ABA to Mrs. M. D. Wolcott, November 10, 1878,
Letters
, 739.

¹²⁶²
partial manuscript remains: AMA’s “Memoir of 1878,” a partial manuscript of this memoir, mostly in Bronson’s hand, is at HAP.

¹²⁶³
Louisa also penned a note: ABA, April 6, 1877,
Journals
, 474.

¹²⁶⁴
“Some time I will write”: LMA, April 1882,
Journals
, 233 f.

¹²⁶⁵
“sorted old letters”: LMA, August 1885,
Journals
, 262.

¹²⁶⁶
“long-cherished plan”: LMA, October 1879,
Journals
, 217.

¹²⁶⁷
“best accoucheur”: Rivard, in conversation, June 2011.

¹²⁶⁸
“Two years since Marmee”: LMA, November 25, 1879,
Journals
, 217.

¹²⁶⁹
“brain disease”: Medical details regarding May’s death came from Catherine Rivard in conversation, June 2011.

¹²⁷⁰
“weight on my heart”: LMA, December 1879,
Journals
, 218.

¹²⁷¹
On December 31 a telegram: ABA to Ellen Chandler, December 31, 1879,
Letters
, 795.

¹²⁷²
puerperal fever: Catherine Rivard, in conversation, 2011.

¹²⁷³
“wished me to have her baby”: LMA, Notes and Memoranda for 1879,
Journals
, 219.

¹²⁷⁴
“Louisa’s health still continues”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, May 15, 1881, family letters, HAP.

¹²⁷⁵
“Although we have a faithful nurse”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, May 2, 1882, family letters, HAP.

¹²⁷⁶
“perfectly well, busy”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, May 2, 1882, family letters, HAP.

¹²⁷⁷
“now that no one needed” it: Odell Shepard, Introduction to 1881,
ABA Journals
, 521.

¹²⁷⁸
“entirely absorbed”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, May 15, 1881, family letters, HAP.

¹²⁷⁹
“Marmee’s . . . dear face”: LMA, May & June 1979,
Journals
, 215.

¹²⁸⁰
bird’s nest: LMA, October 1879,
Journals
, 217.

¹²⁸¹
“the first woman to register”: LMA, August 1879, Cheney,
LMA’s Life, Letters and Journals
, 321.

¹²⁸²
“our ranks will be fuller”: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 150.

¹²⁸³
“stir up the women”: LMA, 1879,
Journals
, 28.

¹²⁸⁴
“my daughters are loyal”: ABA, August 11, 1879,
Journals
, 508.

¹²⁸⁵
“decided to move to Boston”: LMA, “Recollections of My Childhood,”
Lulu’s Library
, xv–xvi, xix.

¹²⁸⁶
“thrilling tale told briefly”: LMA to Mrs. J. E. Sweet, September 11, 1885,
Letters
, 291–92.

¹²⁸⁷
Michelangelo: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 206.

¹²⁸⁸
“Everything in this busy world”: LMA to Caroline Healey Dall, November 10, 1875,
Letters
, 199.

¹²⁸⁹
“Never use a
long
word”: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 179.

¹²⁹⁰
“My methods of work”: LMA to Frank Carpenter, April 1, 1887,
Letters
, 307.

¹²⁹¹
“few stories written in Concord”: LMA, undated, Cheney,
LMA’s Life, Letters and Journals
, 286.

¹²⁹²
“I made this before breakfast”: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 151.

¹²⁹³
“I can remember”: LMA to Thomas Niles, February 19, 1881,
Letters
, 253.

¹²⁹⁴
Her letters often closed: LMA to
Woman’s Journal
, July 15, 1876, and October 11, 1879, in Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 151.

¹²⁹⁵
Her uncle Sam: M. J. and P. Buhle,
Concise History of Woman Suffrage
, 9.

¹²⁹⁶
“It is impossible for me”: LMA to
Woman’s Journal
, 1885, in Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 168.

¹²⁹⁷
“The assertion that suffragists”: LMA to
Woman’s Journal
, 1883, ibid., 166.

¹²⁹⁸
“Boston’s richest families”: Rawson,
Eden on the Charles
, 34.

¹²⁹⁹
“proximity to a garden”: Ibid., 33.

¹³⁰⁰
charged with grand larceny:
The New York Times
, January 27, 1886.

¹³⁰¹
“picked up in the street”: CMW, unpublished memoir, private collection.

¹³⁰²
convicted of grand larceny:
The New York Times
, June 15, 1886.

¹³⁰³
Jo’s Boys
quotations: LMA,
Jo’s Boys
, 33 f.

¹³⁰⁴
symptoms attributed to calomel: According to
Little Women Abroad
, 64, Dr. Kane, a doctor she met in 1870 in Dinan, France, told her the mercury she received in 1863 caused her chronic health problems. She wrote in 1870 to her parents, “The bunches on my legs are owing to that, for the mercury lies round in a body and don’t do much harm till a weak spot appears when it goes there and makes trouble. . . . But I think Dr. K’s Iodine of Potash will cure it in the end.”

¹³⁰⁵
lupus diagnosis: Hirschhorn, Norbert, and Ian Greaves, “Louisa May Alcott: Her Mysterious Illness,”
Perspectives in Biology and Medicine
, Vol. 50, no. 2, Spring 2007, 243–59.

¹³⁰⁶
Dunreath Place: “The house on Dunreath Place, in Boston, Where Miss Alcott died,” is pictured in
The New England Magazine
, vol. 6, Sarah Orne Jewett, Cairns Collection of American Women Writers.

¹³⁰⁷
“morning & evening”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, February 1889, family letters, HAP.

¹³⁰⁸
more than $2 million: The actual royalty figure at the time was $103,000.

¹³⁰⁹
“A very easy process”: LMA to Thomas Niles, June 28, 1887,
Letters
, 316.

¹³¹⁰
she took a vacation: Stern,
From Blood & Thunder
, 238.

¹³¹¹
“I have tried to spare you”: LMA to Frederick Pratt and John Pratt Alcott, July 10, 1887,
Letters
, 317.

¹³¹²
“I have little hope”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, July 1887, family letters, HAP.

¹³¹³
“I always gave Mother”: LMA to Louisa Bond, October [25?], 1887,
Letters
, 322.

¹³¹⁴
“All is well”: LMA to AAP, November 27, 1887,
Letters
, 323.

¹³¹⁵
“I mend slowly”: LMA to Mary Mapes Dodge, December 22, 1887,
Letters
, 328.

¹³¹⁶
“well-written . . . pretty good”: LMA to Mary Mapes Dodge, December 31, 1886, Cheney,
LMA: Her Life, Letters, and Journals
, 375.

¹³¹⁷
“improved all winter”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, February 17, 1889, family letters, HAP.

¹³¹⁸
“needs no logic”: LMA to Florence Phillips, October 20, [1886?],
Letters
, 302.

¹³¹⁹
“Father, here is your Louie”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, February 17, 1889, family letters, HAP.

¹³²⁰
poor health: Catherine Rivard said LMA’s last words were “Is it not meningitis?”—the disease she suspected had killed her sister May. Doctors now find that diagnosis unlikely in both women.

¹³²¹
“hard to be happy”: AAP to Alfred Whitman, May 29, 1891, family letters, HAP.