---
title: ‘A very serious thing indeed!’
description: After a summer holiday in Manchester, the Grays were back in Boston.
---

[Vita Brevis ](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org)

# [‘A very serious thing indeed!’](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed)

 Written by [Scott C. Steward](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/ssteward) | Mar 10, 2017 3:00:54 PM

[**Author’s note**: *This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, began* [here](http://vita-brevis.org/2016/09/what-a-wonderful-experience/).]

 Allen, ca. 1860. Courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society, Item PP231.236 

After a summer holiday in Manchester, the Grays [[1]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn1) were back in Boston. The engagement of a family friend reminded Mrs. Gray of some of the undercurrents which must have swirled unnoticed about her own engagement in 1844:

**61 Bowdoin Street, Boston, Sunday, 11 September 1864**: A dull lowering day has settled into a steady rain – so we shall probably not get out to “The Pines”[[2]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn2) tomorrow, as proposed, to dine – for which I am sorry. I want to go myself, and I want Sue [Shober][[3]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn3) to see the place & house. I hear it is handsome and commodious enough within, to amply compensate its outward unsightliness – which is saying a good word for its accommodations certainly, as externally the house does not satisfy the eye at all.

Mary [Gray][[4]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn4) is at Milton with R.P.W.[[5]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn5) – she will come back tomorrow, and go down to Manchester for a few days with Elise [Richards][[6]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn6) – and then to Lucy Bowditch’s[[7]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn7) till school begins. Frank [Gray][[8]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn8) is quite interested in getting up the mock parts for his [Harvard] class. Sam [Gray][[9]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn9) has just had two very nice copies of Flaxman[[10]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn10) framed neatly for Frank’s birth-day present; a Minerva and [a] Mars – fine figures, wh. he drew before he went out of town. And now he has just finished a beautiful copy of the “Descent of Juno & Minerva,” [two] lovely female figures in a car drawn by 4 coursers.

Mrs. Shober[[11]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn11) invited Sue and me to go with her to the Organ Concert yesterday at noon. Mr. J.K. Paine[[12]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn12) the performer – and a magnificent concert he gave us…

**Thursday, 15 September 1864**: Yesterday was a lovely day, after the two days’ rain storm. Sue, Mary & I dined at “The Pines.” Fanny [Gray][[13]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn13) drove in for us. Dr. [Gray] could not go, [and] it was well he did not, for he was obliged to off to Providence, very suddenly, with a patient suffering under delirium tremens – the father of the young man not daring to go alone with him. Dr. G. returned at 5½ this morning, pretty tired. I staid up till midnight packing my trunk last night. We start for Philad[elphia], Sue & I, this p.m…

[The diarist’s daughter] Mary C.G. came home from her visit at Milton, bringing news of Isaac Wainwright’s engagement to a Miss Fannie Skinner of M.![[14]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn14) What Isaac expects to support a wife upon, is a mystery to outsiders!

[*After a visit to the Shobers in Philadelphia, Mrs. Gray returned home to Boston*:]

**Saturday, 8 October 1864**: …R.P.W. spent part of Thursday morning with me. They will remain at Milton yet awhile. Isaac’s fiancée is making them a visit, and impresses them favorably. She is of a Boston family, at the South End – of whom none of us know anything – but they are highly respectable people, though having no part in what we call “Boston society.”

How opinions change as years go on! When I was engaged to Dr. Gray, I did not at all realize to what a test I was putting the amiability, forbearance, & good feeling of his family, when I came among them a total stranger, of whom they knew only that he thought me worthy to be presented to them, as the one of their family circle who was to claim the regard & consideration due to his wife.

The cordial kindness with wh. they received me seemed quite as natural then as it was gratifying – now it seems much more gratifying than natural. I realize now, that it is a very serious and not always satisfactory thing, when the impulsive young people of a family claim your confidence and consideration in that way, for some person of whom you know little or nought beyond the fact that *nolens volens*[[15]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftn15) they are to be admitted into the sacredest intimacy of your family circle, and with whom its interest, honour, and happiness are to be evermore, in a certain degree bound up & involved. A very serious thing indeed!

*Continued *[here](http://vita-brevis.org/2017/03/all-honour-respect/).

### Notes

[[1]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref1) Hedwiga Regina Shober (1818–1885) was married to Dr. Francis Henry Gray 1844–80. Entries from the Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections.

[[2]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref2) The new country house belonging to Dr. Gray’s brother and sister-in-law in Brookline.

[[3]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref3) The diarist’s sister, Susanna Budd Shober (1823–1898?), who was married to Dr. John Davies of Fayal in the Azores 1867–81.

[[4]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref4) Mrs. Gray’s daughter Mary Clay Gray (1848–1923).

[[5]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref5) The diarist’s best friend, Rebecca Parker Wainwright (1820–1901).

[[6]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref6) Mary’s friend Eliza Bordman Richards (1848–1924).

[[7]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref7) Mary’s friend Lucy Bowditch (1850–1918), who married Richard Stone in 1875.

[[8]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref8) The diarist’s son Francis Calley Gray (1846–1904).

[[9]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref9) Mrs. Gray’s son Samuel Shober Gray (1849–1926).

[[10]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref10) The sculptor John Flaxman (1755–1826).

[[11]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref11) The diarist’s stepmother, Lucy Hall Bradlee (1806–1902), was married to Samuel Lieberkuhn Shober 1830–47.

[[12]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref12) John Knowles Paine (1839–1906), one of the “Boston Six” composers and Harvard’s choirmaster for more than forty years.

[[13]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref13) Dr. Gray’s niece, Frances Loring Gray (1843–1919), who married William Adams Walker Stewart in 1874.

[[14]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref14) Frances Caroline Skinner (b. 1838) was married to Rebecca Wainwright’s brother Isaac 1867–71.

[[15]](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed?hs_amp=true#_ftnref15) Willingly or unwillingly.

[View full post](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2017/03/serious-thing-indeed)

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