One of the most intriguing members of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore was Clara Newman Turner—known in the minutes as “Mrs. Sidney Turner”—who served for several years on the Board of Managers and appears frequently in the minutes as a presenter and commenter on others’ presentation. The sleuthing of Jill Fury, one of my students, revealed that Turner was the cousin of no less than Emily Dickinson–and had in fact grown up with Emily in Amherst after being left an orphan.
Clara Newman Turner (1844-1920), in The Kennel Club: A History and Record of Its Work (London: Kennel Gazette, 1905).
Clara and Emily apparently remained close for many years. Clara visited Emily and her sister Lavinia in Amherst every year, even after she married Sidney Turner in 1869 and moved to Connecticut. According to Clara’s niece and apparent namesake, Clara Newman Pearl, the famously reclusive Emily actually left her Amherst home to comfort Clara after her husband passed away a decade or so later. Clara Newman Pearl describes the visit thus:
“A slight figure wrapped in an old squirrel-lined circular flew up the steps and into the house. A rusty crepe veil fluttered in the wind as she hurried to my aunt’s side. It was the first time that she had been out of Amherst for twenty years, and she was the center of attraction as long as she stayed. My fifteen year old curiosity made me ask why she did not leave Amherst more often. I remember well her reply. ‘Because, my dear, I do not like to travel. One sees so many people and things that one does not wish to see.’” (Qtd. in Richard B. Sewell, Life of ED, Vol. 2, p. 266)
Some years after Sidney passed away, Clara Newman Turner ended up in Baltimore, first living at the old Altamont Hotel, and then at the Cecil apartments, which are still located at the corner of Eutaw St. and Dolphin Ave. Here, she would have lived near several other WLCB members, including longtime secretary Lydia Crane, who lived just around the corner, and it’s likely that that’s how she became a member of the Club.
Clara was not just a reader of Emily’s poetry. She also wrote poetry herself. Jill discovered the title of a book titled Mail from Nowhere, and after contacting several librarians, we located a single copy in the Houghton Library at Harvard. The Houghton digitized the self-published, privately printed volume, and it’s now available for anyone to read.
Front cover/wrapper of Mail from Nowhere (published before 1900?), by Clara Badger Newman Turner (Mrs. Sidney Turner), Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Clara, as a confidant and correspondent of both Emily and Lavinia Dickinson, almost certainly received the handwritten poems Emily enclosed in fascicles and circulated among family and friends. The title and dedication page of Turner’s book itself evokes the privately circulated fascicles, and it is tempting to think of the poems in this book being written as responses to poems by Emily (and which ones?).
Dedication page of Mail from Nowhere.
The poetry included in Mail from Nowhere, like Dickinson’s poems, tends toward short, balladic verse structures and frequently touches on religious subjects. Unlike Dickinson’s, however, Turner was far more confident in her faith, and also frequently treated domestic subjects including marriage, motherhood, and widowhood, which were almost entirely absent from her cousin’s poems.
While her poetry was far more conventional than her cousin’s, Clara Newman Turner was nevertheless capable of ironic introspection, and her poems frequently express a faint (or sometimes not so faint) disappointment in life and in woman’s lot. The deflating aura of January 2nd– the second-sleepiest day of the year, according to a newly released study from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, after January 1–prompts me to share two poems from Turner, both included in Mail from Nowhere as well as in our anthology of works by the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore, Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the WLCB. Enjoy–and happy new year, or Jan. 2, or … whatever.
The New Year
Thou hast opened thine eyes to a new, strange thing; Thou hast opened thine ears to hear bells ring To the birth–to the birth of a year. Thou hast opened thine heart with those who pray; The dear old year is a yesterday; A new, strange thing is here.
To-morrows are all bound close together, With their varied suns, and winds, and weather. Can any one–any one know? We sometimes wish, “If we only knew!” We only say, “Happy year to you!” And pray it may be so.
January the Second
January First promised to protect me. January First has gone away and left me; Me–January Second, at the head of all this train! Indeed you’ll never catch me in such a scrape again!
I can’t live many hours; “I feel it in my bones,” The sad responsibility of all these other ones Tugging at my heels as tho’ their lives depended On their getting right along as soon as mine was ended.
It’s the way with lots of things–They’re sort of in the way If they claim a single minute beyond their little day. You’re January Second till the Third comes up apace. And then you just step down and the next one takes your place.
We all just have to face it, and have our little day, Without a single question as to any other way. We’re on the top a little while, and people read us through, And then we’re gone, and laid aside, the best that we can do.
The women of the WLCB loved Christmas. I mean, they loved Christmas—all twelve days of it, too. One of their most cherished traditions was their annual Twelfth Night celebration in early January, where they threw open the doors to the Club rooms at the Maryland Academy of Sciences building located at 105 W. Franklin St. and presented readings, dramatic performances, music, and refreshments to an appreciative throng.
They wrote about Christmas, too. The first selection included in Parole Femine: The Words and Lives of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore is a charming novelette by Jane Zacharias, The Newsboys’ Christmas Party, in which the female protagonist, with the help of a kindly newspaper editor, organizes a dinner and party for the ragged but hardworking newsboys of Baltimore.
Here, we share an excerpt of a poem by one of the Club’s most prolific members, Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer. It was one of seven she had planned, based on W. H. G. Kingston’s modernization of Richard Johnston’s Seven Champions of Christendom (1597). As far as we know, only three were published: “St. George and the Dragon” in the April 1880 issue of the children’s magazine St. Nicholas, “St. Patrick” in the March 17, 1888 issue of Harper’s Weekly, and the poem included here, “Saint Anthony,” published in the January 1891 Harper’s Monthly. The publications corresponded to each of the saint’s days for each figure; St. Anthony’s feast day is Jan. 17. (She also published another “saint poem,” “The Legend of Saint Nicholas,” in the December 1886 Harper’s Monthly.)
Latimer may very well have written poems for all seven champions of Christendom. She was called upon repeatedly to read them at WLCB meetings. However, we have not located either publications or manuscript for poems on St. Andrew, St. Denis, St. David, or St. James.
Majolica image of St. Anthony with pig, c. 19th-20th c., Naples.
St. Anthony is the patron saint of domesticated animals and is often depicted with a pig. These animals are at the center of Latimer’s poem, which relates their rescue of two orphan children, Linette and Paul. The poem is a great example of traditional 19th-century poetry. You might enjoy reading it to your children on Christmas Eve.
If you’re interested in reading the entire poem, you can either buy the book or find the original page images from Harper’s Monthly at the WLCB online archive. Enjoy!
Saint Anthony A Christmas Eve Ballad
I
More than eight hundred years ago— How changed is the world since then! Man’s nature remains the same, we know, Man’s joys and sorrows, man’s weal and woe. But how changed are the ways of men! Who cared in those days for the weak or the poor, For the patient dumb beast or the child? For the wretches whose work-day worth was o’er, Or the leper sin-defiled? Not Baron or Burgher. Our Mother the Church Was sole friend to the poor and the old; She stretched out her arms from the convent gates; She gathered them into her fold.
It was Christmas Eve; a snow-storm passed O’er the hills o’ertop Vienne. The flakes fell fast, and a furious blast Swept over the landscape, while gathering fast Rose a mist that obscured the hills, and cast Deep gloom over gorge and glen. The women and girls in the low-built town Watched the flakes as they hovered down. “Our Lady,” said they, “is spinning to-day, And the fluffs of her wool fly over our land. Catch one, and should it not melt in your hand, It may bring you luck,” they say.
But not long lasted so gay a mood: For, “Where is my child?” shrieked a mother, aloud. “And where is my child?” “And mine?” Were echoed in chorus by all the crowd For each had some loved one in mist and cloud Herding the goats or tending the swine.
Soon the church was filled with mothers and wives Wresting in prayer for the precious lives Bound up in the bundle of life with theirs. Oh, blessed are prayers when love would fain Bring solace to sorrow or soothing to pain! For it is when all human efforts seem vain That God strengthens our weakness and answers our prayers.
By-and-by came dropping in The dear ones for whom they prayed, And many a fond caress was given, And many thanksgivings went up to Heaven For rescued man and maid. Not so many thanks as there had been prayers: We think lightly of blessings, but magnify cares.
All who had been prayed for were housed and safe Ere the curfew rang its call— All who had been prayed for—not all–-for yet Out on the mountain-side, cold and wet, Frightened, bewildered, and shivering, sat Two orphan children—little Linette And her younger brother Paul.
II
Deep in a cave the little ones hid, weeping; Their swine close huddled near them in a crowd. Paul, into Linette’s sheltering bosom creeping, Bewailed his hunger and the cold aloud. “Look up! take heart, dear Paul!” she answered, brightly. “Erelong I’m sure we’ll safely reach the town.” And here she chafed his aching feet, and tightly Wrapped them more closely in her tattered gown.
“And listen, Paul (for I must keep on praying), For the far tinkle or the convent bell. I heard one day a Reverend Father saying That good Saint Anthony loves swine-herds well, “That all his life he cherished living creatures. He sent his holy relics to our town. You know, Paul, how he looks, how kind his features, And how the pig peeps out beneath his gown.
“Take courage! I am here. Keep close beside me. Dear God, take pity upon Paul and me! Paul has but me to save or help him. Guide me! For we are orphans. We have only Thee.” So she knelt, praying—praying, but still trying With words of love Paul’s courage to uphold, Who all the while she spoke sat softly crying, And growing drowsier in the biting cold.
“Paul, it is Christmas Eve, I now remember; Perhaps our pigs may speak to us,” she said. “They say beasts talk on this night in December, When Jesus lay a babe in cattle shed. “Oh Paul suppose it’s true! Our swine might tell us How to Saint Anthony’s to find our way. We’ll tell the Reverend Fathers what befell us; I know they will not turn Christ’s waifs away.
“Father—our only Father; we’ve no other— Hear us and help us. Other help we’ve none. Be good to us, because we have no mother. Save Paul! save me! I can’t leave Paul alone.” And so she prayed, most piteously calling For help to Him who she believed could save; But as she prayed, faster the flakes kept falling, And dark, dark night closed round them in the cave.
Her voice grew faint. It rallied, then grew weaker, But the brave heart to the last moment prayed; When little Paul grew drowsier and the speaker Grew the more earnest as she grew afraid. At last she ceased. Were both the children sleeping That sleep to which no work-day walking comes? Would they awake still orphans spent with weeping? Or, angel tended, awake in heavenly homes?
Nay, suddenly the cave grew brighter, larger; Their tearful, wondering eyes grew fixed and big. Five creatures entered it—a gallant charger, Two lions, and a raven, and a pig. They had no fear of lions, for Paul thought them Great, warm, soft cats. He seized their mighty paws, Lifted their tawny manes, and smiling, caught them By the huge beards dependent from their jaws.
The lions stooped and licked the children’s faces, The life returned that had so nearly fled; And when revived by warmth, with queer grimaces, The raven dropped on them a loaf of bread. They ate. Soft smiles lit up Linette’s pale features; She thanked the God who sent them help in need; And at His holy name the reverent creatures Bowed their proud crests and thus outspake the steed:
“Leave every hundred years,” he said, “is given To us one hour on Christmas Eve to speak, And do, in honor of our saint in heaven, One deed of kindness to the poor or weak. “Mount on my back. The bells will soon give warning We must depart. Our moments fleet away. All children should be happy Christmas morning; The Saviour’s Birthday is the Children’s Day.
“Paul, take this little pig—’tis lame and weakly— And hug it close; its warmth may warm you too. Remember how the marble saint smiles meekly Down on his pig and think he smiles on you.”
III
Down the steep hill, half frightened still, The children rode the horse; The raven fluttered the flakes away; The lions slowly broke the way Down to the rocky gorge where lay Saint Anthony’s Convent, lone and gray; But a struggling moonbeam cast a ray Of light on its tower cross, And lit up its gold till it shone afar, And Linette thought it Bethlehem star.
It was Christmas Eve, as I said, and late When they reached St. Anthony’s Convent gate. Within the chapel was warmth and light Such as befitted a Christmas night; But every Brother was in his cell Waiting the sound of the midnight bell. Not one of them guessed, we may well believe. How their chapel was filled on that Christmas Eve.
Over the altar, clear and bright, Saint Anthony stood in the Christmas light. With hand outstretched he signed the cross O’er children and lions, pig, raven, and horse; And then he slowly faded away, Like the lingering light of a dying day.
In the next three sections, several of the animals–the horse, the raven, and the lions, in turn–tell the children about their relationship with Saint Anthony. We pick up with the last to speak.
VII
Said little Paul, the small white pig caressing, As close he hugged it fondly to his breast: “What did you do to bring the Saint a blessing? They say he loved you more than all the rest.” “Nay,” said the pig, “I only gave him pleasure. What did you think a little pig could do? I was his link to earth, his one sole treasure, And that he loved me best of all is true. “’Tis what we are, not what we do for others, That makes us dear to those with whom we live; And that is nature’s reason why fond mothers Raptures of love to helpless infants give.
“The good Saint found me one day almost dying Upon the burning sands. He picked me up; He bore me home, in his own bosom lying; I shared his food, his shelter, and his cup. “I never grew, was always lame and ailing; For this he loved me more I could discern. And how I loved him! Words are unavailing To tell the love I gave to him in return.
“His last caress to me was faintly given; For I was closely nestled at his side. Then his worn hands he clasped in prayer to Heaven. The angels came from him. And so he died. “Men came. They found us. Me they cast forth roughly; Called me unclean, unholy and abhorred. Said it was shame to see me there and gruffly Chased me away from my dear friend and lord.
“They buried him close of day. They cleft him A tomb in solid rock and rolled a stone Before it. Then they went away and left him Alone with God. But I was all alone.
“I crept back to the cruel stone which shut me From the dear friend I had forever lost, For those cold-hearted men refused to let me Lie by his side, a few brief hours at most. “As I lay dying, ere my life departed. A voice that with sweet music seemed to blend Spake thus to me: ‘Thou shalt no more be parted, Fond, faithful creature, from thy saintly friend. “‘Know that in art thou shalt be found forever (Whether the artist work in stone or paint) Beside Saint Anthony. No hand shall sever His faithful pig from the dumb creatures’ Saint.’”
VIII
Here the pig broke off his story. Over town and glen and hill Rang the Christmas bells out. Glory! Glory! Glory! Peace—good-will! And the monks, in long procession, Torches waving, banners spread, Filled into the Convent chapel With their Abbot at their head. As he neared the light altar, “What is here?” the Abbot cried; For he saw two lonely children Sleeping softly side by side. And he added as the others Gathered round Linette and Paul:
“They are Christmas gifts, my brothers, That our Saint has sent us all. In a vision late I saw him, And he said: ‘Whilst I approve All your zeal, one thing is lacking, Some frail living thing to love. Such a gift, bestowed by Heaven, Will your Convent soon receive. Look for it before the altar In your chapel Christmas Eve!”
“Glory! glory!” sang the Fathers. “Blessed children, they shall be No more orphans. We will call them Children of Saint Anthony!” “Glory! glory!” sang the children. “Glory!” heavenly angels sang. Glory! glory! from each belfry Christmas bells in chorus rang. Glory! Glory! Let all creatures Join in hope the Christmas strain, Longing for that glorious Easter When the Lord will come again; For which, till then, all creation Travaileth awhile in pain.
Church bells are an essential part of Baltimore’s sensory landscape. Some ring every day; some only on Sundays. The bells at Old St. Paul’s Episcopal Church downtown have been ringing since at least 1812, when they warned Baltimoreans of British invaders during the War of 1812.
Old St. Paul’s Church, at Charles and Saratoga Streets. The bell tower dominates the left side of the building.
Alice Emma Sauerwein Lord (1848-1930) wrote a poem about the church bells of Baltimore, which was published in her book A Symphony in Dreamland in 1899. One imagines her penning these lines as the carillons wafted in through an open window at her house on St. Paul St. just north of Penn Station, on a quiet summer Sunday morning.
Sabbath Bells (1899) Alice Sauerwein Lord
Hark! I hear the murmuring of bells– Distant bells that pulse the city’s heart! Silvery throb from hill to hill that tells, What their wordless messages impart! Murmuring Bells!
List! The many voices rise and fall With a resonance that fills all space, Many-toned, yet blending, each with all, Till sonorous echoes reach this place. Chiming Bells!
Wherefore should my heart respond so fast To this far-off music of the bells? Is it that they whisper of the past? Can it be hope’s voice that still foretells? O ye Bells!
You can still hear the church bells chiming across Baltimore on Sunday mornings, from the Baltimore Cathedral and the New Refuge Deliverance Church (formerly Christ Episcopal) in Mt. Vernon, to Little Italy’s St. Leo’s, to St. Brown Memorial Episcopal and Corpus Christi in Bolton Hill. And the bells at Old St. Paul’s are still ringing, more than 200 years after the British were repulsed from American shores.
One wonders which of the bells inspired Lord’s poem, and whether one still hears them today.
Summer farewells (Dalea pinnata), courtesy Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
There’s a certain slant of light . . . not quite the same slant of light Dickinson made famous, the somber light of winter afternoons and cathedral tunes—but a light that lets you know fall is on its way. I’ve been noticing it during the past week or so, and with the beautiful, hazy late summer days, this poem by Marguerite Easter, one of the WLCB’s more accomplished poets, keeps coming to mind. That put it in my mind to share with you. Enjoy summer while it lasts. Fall is a-comin’.
Summer’s-Farewells (1892) Marguerite Easter
(Local name in Virginia for late wild-wood flowers of Aster genus.)
Unto the complaining woods suddenly they came, To the fields so desolate but the day before, To the unsmiling paths and to the hills that wore Such sullen looks; there was no further need to blame Nature’s improvidence, for lo, where pin oaks flame, And large leafed yellow hickories sprout with more Than Spring’s abundance seemingly, they bloomed o’er Her lately bereaved breast. I asked their name—
That suddenly to wood and path and meadow came— And that on warm upland slopes were white in hue, But in hollows, where I had thought but shadows grew, Were purple-petaled, with calyxes the same As ragged-robins have, and stamens that became Golden or red, as by chance of birth they knew Of sunlit clearings, or of depths where pines renew Themselves perpetually. I asked their name.
“‘Summer’s-farewells,’ we call them here.” Summer’s farewells! They are the final gift of sentiment to sight. O certainly, the earth should be contented quite To be remembered so.— “We call them here ‘Farewells.’” O love, I am the field, the wood, the path, the hill Before these come. Alas, I bide thy coming still—
Who have been gone so long, so long. E’en summer days Send back greeting to the earth they loved of late, But thou abidest in silence, and I must await Thy recognition. Hateful clime! whose woodland ways No Summer’s-farewells have;—I am that clime that stays Wrapt in November’s loneliness, my woods debate Their dolor, my falling leaves deplore their fate,— There are no Summer’s-farewells to my Autumn days.
“‘Summer’s-farewells,’ we call them here.” Summer’s farewells! They are the final gift of sentiment to sight. O certainly, the earth should be contented quite To be remembered so.— “We call them here ‘Farewells.’” O love, I am the field, the wood, the path, the hill Before these came. Alas, I bide thy coming still.
I am in the process of compiling the Club bibliography (more on this in a future post) and discovered that Lizette Woodworth Reese, the WLCB’s best-known poet and first woman poet laureate of Maryland, published several poems in the final years of her life in a magazine called Gardens, Houses, and People, which turned out to be the neighborhood newsletter of the up-and-coming development of Roland Park in North Baltimore.
Cover of the January 1936 issue of Gardens, Houses, and People, published by the Roland Park Company, Baltimore.
Reese did not live in Roland Park. Why would she have published her poems in this little fly-by-night publication? Initially, I assumed that the newsletter simply reprinted her poems, by way of adding some local flavor, seasonal interest, and cultural cachet to their pages. This seems to have been true for the poem “Hallowmas,” published in Gardens, Houses, and People in November, 1934. But several other poems appear to have appeared solely in this publication.
I still haven’t completely figured out why, but in looking up the poems in the pages of the magazine I encountered a fascinating story about the final poem published there, a sonnet with the intriguing title, “To an Indecent Novelist,” published in the January 1936 issue. Why would a poem critiquing the decadence and prurient inclinations of contemporary authors appear in a neighborhood newsletter, I wondered? And why would they publish it?
Well, it was because Reese had just passed away, on December 17, 1935, just a few weeks after having sent this poem, along with one titled “A Christmas Song” (appropriately, if tritely, published in the December 1935 issue of Gardens, Houses, & People), to the magazine’s editor, Warren Wilmer Brown. Thus, Brown concluded, it was highly likely that “To an Indecent Novelist” was “the last poem by Lizette Woodworth Reese.” He featured the poem on the first page of the issue, alongside a poignant depiction of Reese in her final days. I include a bit of it below. But first, the poem:
To an Indecent Novelist Lizette Woodworth Reese
You measure by a ditch, and not a height, Make life no deeper than a country bin One keeps for apples on a winter’s night, Thence prate the immaturities of sin. You weigh by littles, by some cracked emprise. Why not by that one thing a man has done, In some vast hour, beneath hot, hating eyes, When, hard against a wall, he fought and won? The spirit still outwits the lagging flesh: Cross but one lane, and you shall find again That righteousness is older still than lust; Strict loveliness of living find afresh, Sound women, too, and reasonable men, That not yet all the gentlefolk are dust.
Of this poem, Brown wrote:
“She sent it to us shortly before the inception of the illness that culminated, after a few weeks, in her death. . . . Whether it has appeared elsewhere in the meantime we do not know, but fancy it has not; the fact that she wanted it finally to reach the direct attention of our readers, many of whom were her warm friends, touched us very deeply and intensified the feeling of gratitude and honor that she had chosen these columns to the first appearance of a number of her later poems.
“That feeling was very keen, indeed, when we called upon her – it was Thanksgiving Day – shortly after she had been taken to the Church Home And Infirmary, where as Henry L. Megan pointed out in his fine memorial tribute in The Evening Sun, another great poet, Edgar Allan Poe, died.
“She was looking so pitifully pale and exhausted that it was not necessary to be told that the visit must be very short, but suffering and weak as she was her courage was superb, since her spirit knew no vanquishing. . . .
“Never was there a soul more impervious to the mercenary and otherwise debasing influences of modern times; never was there one that looked facts more valiantly in the face and took its stand once for all on its own high ground of idealism and faith in the fundamental decency and dignity of man.
“She saw loveliness wherever she turned and wrought the materials of her impressions into verse that often gleamed pure gold… She never was tempted even to change her own lyrics style, anymore than she was impelled to condone the license, to say nothing of the licentiousness, that so many contemporary poets and their readers indulged in complacently.
“She did not hesitate to express her opinion on such matters very freely and emphatically in conversation, but the only time, to our knowledge, she ever made it the subject of the poem was when she wrote ‘To an Indecent Novelist.’ Read the sonnet again, study it carefully, if you would find the dominant influence that shaped her moral outlook and kept the stream of her inspiration as a poet unsullied.”
Mistress Brent’s Bluff, The Baltimore Sun November 7, 1915
Elizabeth Lester Mullin was born around the year 1874. Her father, Michael A. Mullin was a well-known lawyer in Baltimore, leader within the Catholic church, and graduate of Loyola College. Her mother, Elizabeth C. Mullin (born Josephine Cluskey) was also a prominent member of the Catholic church and founded the Fuel Guild. Miss Mullin had one brother who tragically died in 1906 after falling ill during his service in the Spanish-American war. According to census records it appears that Mullin never married, living with her mother until Mrs. Mullin’s death in 1919.
Elizabeth Lester Mullin was a member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore from 1899 until 1914, serving as the treasurer from 1904 until 1914. Mullin was also accepted as a member of the Maryland Historical Society in 1916 and served as the secretary of the Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association.
Miss Mullin was fluent in French and served as a translator for several publications from French to English. Some of these titles included “The Codicil” by Paul Ferrier and “Atalanta” by Edouard Rod. She was also the author of her own works of short fiction. Her story “Mistress Brent’s Bluff” was published in the Baltimore Sun in 1915, and another work of short fiction is mentioned in the Woman’s Literary Club Meeting Minutes of October 2, 1901, but was not called by a title and is currently unrecovered.
Although Miss Mullin seemed to publish little of her own work, her translations made French works accessible to foreign audiences, making her an integral part of their literary production.
Sources:
“Edgar Allan Poe: A Centenary Tribute.” Baltimore: Edgar Allan Poe Memorial Association, 1910.
Mary Spear Nicholas Tiernan was born on February 14, 1835. Or was it 1836? Was her birthday even in February? Wikipedia thinks so, but the Encyclopedia of Virginia places her birth somewhere in 1836. Mrs. Tiernan’s early life is particularly difficult to pin down. As a charter member of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore and an author whose novels are still available for purchase today, I would think more would be known about her. Unfortunately, the details are quite sparse. What I do know: She was the third wife of Charles Tiernan, a member of the State of Maryland Militia in Baltimore. She is did not have any children. Much of her early life was spent in Richmond, Virginia, where her father was a district attorney. According to a death announcement in the Baltimore Sun from January 14, 1891, her wit “brought to bear upon her literary work the advantages of a scholarly education.” This makes me assume that she did not have any sort of higher education, although I will continue to search for records that could indicate otherwise. In her life, she published short stories in Century Illustrated Magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, and Scribner’s Monthly. Her death announcements in The Democratic Advocate of Westminster, MD and The Baltimore Sun state that she was 56 when she passed away from pneumonia on January 13, 1891. On the anniversaries of the club, the women would decorate her grave, along with the graves of Edgar Allen Poe and Sidney Lanier, according to The Baltimore Sun in 1899 and 1900, which indicates how highly she was respected by the other women.
Mary Spear Nicholas Tiernan. Image from Wikipedia
Her southern upbringing appeared to be quite influential in her writing; in fact, out of the seven short stories and novels I have read by her, all seven of them are set in Virginia! Each of them also centers around the Confederacy in some way or another- whether it be the inclusion of Confederate soldiers as characters or references to the Yankees in the north, her stories are set firmly in the Civil War. Her characters were described by reviewers in the November 11, 1885 edition of The Baltimore Sun as “pure and innocent” and I think that captures them perfectly. The majority of her stories center on young women and their suitors, finding an innocent love in the Virginia countryside. She was praised for her ability to make readers interested in her characters in novels like Homoselle and Suzette. I must say, this is true. Tiernan’s women are witty and interesting. A great example of this comes in Homoselle. The eponymous girl has previously expressed her disdain for her family’s British guest, Mr. Halsey. When Halsey expresses his delight after trying his first mint julep, Homoselle responds: “”The inventor of juleps,’ began Homoselle,– and as it was the first remark she volunteered, Halsey listened with interest,– ‘Like the inventor of the guillotine, is said to have fallen a victim to his own invention.’” Her comment is the perfect combination of intelligent and vaguely ominous, making even modern readers like myself get drawn into her charm and wit. Her short stories and novels are full of women who are unafraid to speak strongly despite the fact that they are also bound to societal conventions of docility.
