Posted on by Hunter Flynn · 1 Comment

Getting to the bottom of Lanier’s burial

During our trip to the Green Mount Cemetery today, I was perplexed by one instance in particular: the circumstances of the poet / musician Sidney Lanier’s burial ground. For one thing, the stone was unlike any I had ever seen at a cemetery. For another, his grave was actually located on the plot of the Turnbull family (Mrs. Frances L. Turnbull being the founding president of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore)—no other Laniers around him. This means, of course, we weren’t able to identify the name of his wife, who we know also to have been a member of the Club.

I decided to see what I could find out concerning all of the above.

Photo of Turnbull plot lifted from findagrave.com. Lanier’s grave is the reddish stone with the plaque; the three stones next to him are Turnbulls.

First of all: why the Turnbulls? In Aubrey Harrison Starke’s extensive biographical and critical study of Sidney Lanier (see the “sources” page for citation), he details the nature of his friendship with the Turnbulls. Apparently, Lawrence Turnbull, c-owner and editor of the Southern Magazine,  first visited Lanier at his home in Macon, Georgia, after having read his poem “Nirvana.” It’s not unreasonable to assume that the friendship to ensue from this visit is one of the primary ties that drew Lanier to Baltimore in the first place.

Upon his coming to Baltimore, the Turnbulls and the Laniers immediately developed a close tie. Mrs. Turnbull’s relationship with Lanier in particular is thought to be especially important by Starke. He writes of Mr. Turnbull’s “poetic, music-loving wife,” that her “romantic idealization of Lanier has stamped itself unmistakably on Lanier’s character as it appears through the aura of Lanier legend.” He continues, “[Mrs. Turnbull] must be remembered as a real benefactor of Lanier’s Baltimore days.”

I can’t help but wonder how much her “romanticization” of Lanier could be rooted to his reputation as a Confederate nostalgic. A favorite topic of Lanier’s poetry was that of an agricultural utopia. Most of it is Wordworthian, and innocent enough (read: “Corn“). But some of his worst poetry depicts the Antebellum South as having been populated by “happy” slaves (read: “Civil Rights“). But that’s a discussion for another day.

But regardless of how close the Laniers were to the Turnbulls, why would he want to be buried with them? Turns out, it was supposed to be temporary. Starke writes that Lanier had requested that an autopsy be performed to find out the cause of the disease that took his life. But here’s the weirdest thing: he died in Lynn, North Carolina. But they carried his body all the way to Baltimore.

For reasons not specified by Starke, the autopsy was never performed. He was interred at the Turnbull lot in 1881. The stone wasn’t erected until 1917, after his wife requested that his body remain there. But the stone did come from Georgia; pink and black marble.

Close-up of the stone, courtesy of Clara Love. The epitaph reads, “I AM LIT WITH THE SUN,” and was lifted from Lanier’s poem, “Sunrise.”

I was also able to determine (finally!) the maiden name of Lanier’s wife: Mary Day. Turns out Lanier met her in the middle of his time in the Confederate Army, in 1863. She was from Macon, too, and had studied music in New York. She lived for forty years after Lanier’s death, and edited and compiled his works. She died in 1931 in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

But her grave isn’t there. Apparently, she doesn’t have one. Starke’s text was published prior to Mary Lanier’s death, but her page on Find a Grave states that her ashes were spread with her husband’s. That is to say: she rests with the Turnbulls, too.

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

Motives behind giving

This past week, I continued working on transcribing the Board of Management meeting minutes from 1908 onwards. A lot caught my interest this week, and I found myself footnoting things with my own comments. I think I’ll write about these in a later post, but for right now, Clara’s post about philanthropy actually got me thinking about the character of the ladies of the Club– or the character they seemed to have wished to portray. As Clara puts it, they almost seemed “more concerned with crafting the image of the spirit of giving rather than the spirit itself.”

While I haven’t stumbled upon in my share of the minutes any talk of philanthropy (which, I guess, serves to prove Clara’s point even more) yet, when I read Clara’s post a particular point in the minutes stood out in my mind.

Basically, in February of 1910 a valued member of the Club, Mrs. Tait, decided to resign her membership after the death of her husband. As a parting gift to show her appreciation of the Club and the women in it, she offers them a bust of Sidney Lanier, an author and poet (who just so happened to also serve in the Confederate army). After some deliberation, the Board agrees that Tait must not know how expensive the bust is, as it’s estimated to be $25, (roughly $610 today!) so they offer to pay for it. Mrs. Tait happily accepts the Board’s offer, and the matter’s closed.

A month later in March, Mrs. Tait dies. Someone suggests that the Club send flowers to her funeral as a tribute, and after some very calculated deliberation on what is “acceptable”, it was deemed “unsuitable” to do this for “one no longer a member”. This is a month after Mrs. Wrenshall writes a lengthy poem to honor another deceased past member, Mrs. Whitney, mind you. But here’s the kicker:

It was recalled that the Board had very lately done a graceful action with regard to Mrs. Tait’s offer to give the Club her bust of Sidney Lanier,–by accepting it only with the condition of returning to her its full value; and having done so while she was living, and able to express–though only verbally–her grateful appreciation of the favor,–a floral tribute was of little consequence now.

This is where Clara’s notion of, are they doing good deeds to be good or to be perceived as good? comes in. It seems like they spent more time sitting and weighing how their actions would make them look than what the actions actually meant. Their treatment of this situation just strikes me as very inauthentic–especially the notion of “oh, well, we did this for her a month ago, so we’re good”. It makes me wonder how much of what the Club does is chosen because of how it will make them appear, not necessarily for its intrinsic value.

Regardless, it boggles my mind that they’d deemed it inappropriate to give flowers to a past member because a) she wasn’t a current member and that somehow made her unworthy and b) they had just done her a favor anyway, so basically they’re off the hook.

Not to mention, Mrs. Tait had only resigned a month before her death. I guess once you resign, you’re good as dead to the Club–they might as well have just given her a bouquet in February.