Hawthorne family reunited in Massachusetts cemetery
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | 12:43 PM ET
CBC Arts
After more than 140 years apart, American author Nathaniel Hawthorne has been reunited with his wife and daughter.
Their remains were buried on Monday in Hawthorne's family plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., after being moved from England.
"It's greatly significant to see the family reunited," said Alison Hawthorne Deming, 59, of Tucson, Ariz., Hawthorne's great-great-grandaughter and an instructor in creative writing at the University of Arizona.
This portrait from the mid-1800s provided by The House of the Seven Gables historic house museum shows author Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, who died in 1871 at age 62.
(The House of the Seven Gables/Associated Press)
Hawthorne, author of The House of the Seven Gables, and his wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, met in the U.S., but after Hawthorne died in 1864, his wife and children moved to England.
She died of typhoid pneumonia six years later and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery in London. Her daughter, Una, who died in 1877, was buried beside her.
Hawthorne historians said the author and his wife shared a passionate relationship and that Sophia's independent personality is reflected in Hawthorne's characters, including Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter.
Wayne Tucker, owner of the Ironshoe Farm in Uxbridge, Mass., drives an antique carriage hearse, which carries the casket holding both Nathaniel Hawthorne's wife and daughter, into the Hawthorne gravesite at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., Monday.
(Chitose Suzuki/Associated Press)
About 40 descendants of the Hawthorne family gathered for the reinterment, which took place near Author's Ridge, where writers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are buried.
"It's also great to get together different parts of the heritage. It's a beautiful celebration for us," said Deming, according to Associated Press.
A modern coffin containing the remains of mother and daughter was put on a horse-drawn 1860 wooden hearse and carried from a local funeral home to a church and then to the cemetery. The funeral procession traced the path of Nathaniel Hawthorne's funeral procession.
Also attending were nuns from the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, a U.S. order dedicated to caring for cancer patients started by Hawthorne's daughter, Rose.
The order had paid to maintain the Hawthorne graves in England, but arranged the reburial in Concord after Kensal Green cemetery officials said the gravesite needed costly repairs.
Much of what is known of the love between Hawthorne and his wife comes from letters written by Sophia.
"It was a great love story. It was one of the premier marriages in American literature," said Philip McFarland, 76, who wrote a book called Hawthorne in Concord.
"It's a misfortune that they were separated in death," he said. "It's very satisfying to anyone who knows the story of the Hawthorne marriage that they're being reunited for eternity."
