The Emilie Loring Collection

Nostalgia was the theme of my first day back in Boston.

The Approach

I drove in from the west on Highway 2, a winding, tree-shaded road with signs made for old-timers: “Exit 125… Old Exit 50.” The new numbering system corresponds to the nearest mile marker; the old one was sequential, a nostalgic throwback. (The posted speed limits were another nostalgic note. They said “55 MPH,” but, long forgotten, traffic moved at a minimum of 65.)

One by one, I passed exits with ties to Emilie Loring. First came the exit to Princeton, MA, the summer home of fellow author Sara Ware Bassett, and later, the exit for Harvard, MA where Clara Endicott Sears built “The Pergolas” and established her Fruitlands Museums. Then came Marlboro, Victor Loring’s home town, but it was spelled “Marlborough” then, and Lexington, where Emilie’s son Selden made his home.

On Foot in Cambridge

I arrived in Cambridge and set out on foot. The azaleas are in full bloom in West Cambridge, a neighborhood of aristocratic, old homes, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s. The famous Mount Auburn Cemetery is here, too, the final resting place of “the great and the good,” including Harvard presidents, Emilie’s grandfather Jerome Boles, and her great-grandfather John Boles. I’ll visit those graves another day.

“Val”

Nearing Harvard Square, I saw the Harvard Radcliffe Institute–formerly Radcliffe College. This was nice timing, as I am here with the Loring family to honor Emilie’s granddaughter Valentine Loring Titus, who passed away last spring. “Val” graduated from Radcliffe College with a degree in art history in 1952, a time when the majority of women did not attend college–or finish, if they did. A 1954 Time magazine article gives perspective about the years in which Emilie wrote and the time that followed: “The proportion of girls in college has slipped from 47% in 1920 (a vintage feminist year) to 37% now. Only a little more than half of all college girls get a bachelor’s degree.”

Early Ancestors

Around the corner from the institute, I get to Cambridge’s Old Burying Ground. Established in 1636, the oldest remaining stone is the one I have come to see: Ann Erinton, who died in 1653 at the age of seventy-seven. Ann is my eighth-great-grandmother. I spend so much time on Emilie Loring’s family that I often neglect my family’s New England roots. Ann’s husband drowned in Boston Harbor in 1630, the year that the town was founded. My ancestor Thomas Dewey arrived in Dorchester three years later, two years before Emilie’s ancestor, Richard Baker, arrived to the same community on the ship Bachelor.

Beacon Hill

Then it’s on to the MBTA Red Line, which delivers me to the north end of Charles Street on Beacon Hill. In my twenty years of staying on this street or nearby, this feels like “my” area of Boston. I turn left and go straight up Chestnut Street. Before I reach it, I can identify Emilie’s home by the white columns that jut out just a little beyond the other facades. I look up and wonder, for the nth time, which floor(s?) her apartment occupied.

Boston Public Garden

Crossing Beacon Street, I enter the Boston Public Garden. Swan boats have been operating here since Emilie was born. The yellow arrow in the rightmost photo points to my room on the top floor of the Park Plaza Hotel where I stayed my first two weeks in Boston, entirely captivated by my view of the garden, the boats, and the very idea of being where Emilie had lived and seeing things that she saw.

Back down to the subway–the Green Line this time–I emerge at Copley Square and a farmer’s market in front of the Boston Public Library. I will never tire of seeing this building.

Boston Public Library

I am short of time, so I quickly walk through the courtyard garden and cross from the old building into the new. This is my destination today: the biography section on the second floor. I check the call number label at the end of each row of books. PR, PS… Yes! There it is! Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom, sandwiched between biographies of Jack London and H. P. Lovecraft.

And then it’s time to go.

Two constants in visiting Boston: more to see than one can realistically get done–and doing a lot of walking. I love it.

Happy Landings, everyone! I’ll be back soon with more from Boston!