The Emilie Loring Collection

While memory is fresh, I want to share my last discoveries during this trip to Boston.

Today, I began in Mount Auburn Cemetery which is famous for the remarkable monuments that can be seen there. I’m sure there are many photos of these in books and online. Here are just a few that caught my eye.

There are so many famous people buried at Mount Auburn! Architect Charles Bulfinch, Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy, statesman and orator Edward Everett, Boston Red Sox sportscaster Curt Gowdy, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.; painter Winslow Homer, author and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, abolitionist Charles Sumner… See what I mean?

I came to find Emilie’s grandfather Jerome Boles, whose dramatic death is described in Happy Landings. I also wanted to find Emilie’s great-grandfather John Boles, the master carpenter and legislator. It was a hot day, so I went straight to my task and left the famous people for another time. I saw too late that Clara Endicott Sears is buried here; I would have looked for her.

Jerome and John Boles are located very near the entrance gate and administration building. Jerome’s grave number is Lawn Avenue #2498 which is behind the Asa Gray fountain and garden (“H”).

The tombstone I expected wasn’t there. Instead, I found this:

Quite the monument! I checked to be sure “J. Boles” meant Jerome, not his father, John. I’ll double-check, but it appears that John and his sons Jerome and Prescott were all entombed in this hillside crypt. The gentleman at the information desk said that tombs like this one can hold as many as twenty people. “J. Boles” appears to be Jerome.

There are more Boleses buried at Mount Auburn, but time was short, so I left the cemetery, took a bus to Harvard Square, and then hopped onto the Red Line and alighted at Charles Street.

I stopped first at Beacon Hill Books & Café. Yes! There’s Happy Landings–a signed copy, too. Thanks to Emilie Loring Lairson for pointing it out.

Next, I bought an ice cream cone and crossed the bridge over Storrow Drive to reach the Charles River Embankment. I have sat here many times, at every stage of research and writing. It was a good, last sight of Boston for this time. I’ll be back.

Happy Landings!