Sophia Hawthorne

Infobox Person
name = Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne


image_size = 200px
caption = etching by Stephen Alonzo Schoff
birth_date = September 21, 1809
birth_place = Salem, Massachusetts
death_date = February 26, 1871
death_place = London, England
education =
occupation =
spouse = Nathaniel Hawthorne
parents =
children = Una, Julian, Rose

Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthorne (September 21, 1809–February 26, 1871) was a painter and illustrator as well as the wife of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. She also published her journals and various articles.

Life

Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1809, in Salem, Massachusetts. Peabody's 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, Horace Mann's wife.

On July 9, 1842, five years after first meeting, she and her neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne were married in Boston by James Freeman Clarke, a coupling that would prove happy for both of them. Both were considered relatively old for marriage (she was 32 and he was five days past his 36th birthday). 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." Sophia left her own impression of this time period by etching in the glass of a window in Hawthorne's study using her diamond ring:

"Man's accidents are God's 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" [Cheevers, Susan (2006). "American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work". Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 174. ISBN 078629521X]

Hawthorne had been pursuing Sophia Peabody as far back as a letter dated March 6, 1839. Sophia had originally objected to marriage. Her 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 and opium to relieve her pain and migraines. [Cheevers, Susan (2006). "American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work". Detroit: Thorndike Press. Large print edition. p. 186. ISBN 078629521X.]

Sophia gave two of her paintings (pictured) 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" cite web |url=http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/Family/Immediate/Images.html |title= Hawthorne in Salem|work= Images Related to The Immediate Family of Nathaniel Hawthorne |accessmonthday=July 15 |accessyear=2008]

The Hawthornes had three children: Una (b. March 3, 1844), Julian (b. May 22, 1846), and Rose (b. May 20, 1851). Hawthorne in 1862 praised his wife: "She is the most sensible woman I ever knew in my life, much superior to me in general talent, and of fine cultivation." [Miller, Edwin Haviland (1991). "Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne". Iowa City: University of Iowa Press: 34. ISBN 0877453322.]

Death, burial, and reburial

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 author's side when he died in his sleep. [Miller, Edwin Haviland (1991). "Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne". Iowa City: University of Iowa Press: 518. ISBN 0877453322.] Sophia moved to England four years later in 1868 with her three children. In February 1871 she died of typhoid pneumonia, her oldest daughter Una soon following in 1877. Mother and daughter were buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London, England.

Julian Hawthorne went on to be a moderately successful author writing about his father and other miscellaneous works. He died in 1934.

Rose went on to found the Roman Catholic order of nuns, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, based in Hawthorne, New York, where she died in 1926. Care for the graves of Sophia and Una fell to this organization. When the grave sites were 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 family's descendants with representatives from the Dominican Sisters and a public ceremony was held at The Old Manse to mark the occasion. [ [http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/06/01/hawthornes_to_be_reunited/ "Boston Globe" article on reburial] ]

General references

*McFarland, Philip: "Hawthorne in Concord". Grove Press, 2004.

External links

* [http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/Family/Immediate/Introduction.html "The Wife and Children of Nathaniel Hawthorne" at "Hawthorne In Salem"]
** [http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/NewsEvents/SophiaPeabodyGravesite.html "Re-interment of Sophia and Una Hawthorne"]
** [http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/Life&Times/Family/Immediate/Images.html "Images Related to The Immediate Family of Nathaniel Hawthorne" including paintings and drawings of Sarah Peabody Hawthorne]
* [http://www.eldritchpress.org/nh/pfenb01.html "Passages from the English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne" (1870) with Preface by Sophia Hawthorne]
* [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-26-hawthorne-burial_x.htm?csp=34 News story about reburial]
* [http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0603741.htm News story about reburial]
* [http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/peabodysisters.html The Peabody Sisters]