[Author’s note: This series, on Mrs. Gray’s reading habits, began here.]
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] tomorrow, as proposed, to dine – for which I am sorry. I want to go myself, and I want Sue [Shober][3] 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] is at Milton with R.P.W.[5] – she will come back tomorrow, and go down to Manchester for a few days with Elise [Richards][6] – and then to Lucy Bowditch’s[7] till school begins. Frank [Gray][8] is quite interested in getting up the mock parts for his [Harvard] class. Sam [Gray][9] has just had two very nice copies of Flaxman[10] 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] invited Sue and me to go with her to the Organ Concert yesterday at noon. Mr. J.K. Paine[12] 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] 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] 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] 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.
[1] 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] The new country house belonging to Dr. Gray’s brother and sister-in-law in Brookline.
[3] The diarist’s sister, Susanna Budd Shober (1823–1898?), who was married to Dr. John Davies of Fayal in the Azores 1867–81.
[4] Mrs. Gray’s daughter Mary Clay Gray (1848–1923).
[5] The diarist’s best friend, Rebecca Parker Wainwright (1820–1901).
[6] Mary’s friend Eliza Bordman Richards (1848–1924).
[7] Mary’s friend Lucy Bowditch (1850–1918), who married Richard Stone in 1875.
[8] The diarist’s son Francis Calley Gray (1846–1904).
[9] Mrs. Gray’s son Samuel Shober Gray (1849–1926).
[10] The sculptor John Flaxman (1755–1826).
[11] The diarist’s stepmother, Lucy Hall Bradlee (1806–1902), was married to Samuel Lieberkuhn Shober 1830–47.
[12] John Knowles Paine (1839–1906), one of the “Boston Six” composers and Harvard’s choirmaster for more than forty years.
[13] Dr. Gray’s niece, Frances Loring Gray (1843–1919), who married William Adams Walker Stewart in 1874.
[14] Frances Caroline Skinner (b. 1838) was married to Rebecca Wainwright’s brother Isaac 1867–71.
[15] Willingly or unwillingly.