"Affection craves legend and relics."

A bit more Christmas

The Christmas festivities have reduced the amount of time available to add to this blog, but in response to Craig’s reference to Mrs. Eddy’s specific article on Christmas in 1905, I thought this might be of interest. Beyond that, the same year saw the Pleasant View staff pool their normal Christmas gift money for each other and instead use that money for helping the needy of Concord. That will be mentioned as well in this brief post.

The following holograph letter from Mrs. Eddy, dated November 24, 1905,  to William A. Johnston, amended her manuscript on Christmas that she had written for the New York World. This letter is on Pleasant View stationery with the McNeil coat-of-arms. It is incorrectly addressed to "Mr. Johnson." The letter asks Johnston to add to the manuscript which she had submitted to the World the following lines:

“Hitherto there is but one Jesus Christ on record. Christ is incorporeal. Neither you nor I in the flesh can be or is Christ.”

Mrs. Eddy's article appeared in the World on December 10, 1905. It was entitled “Christmas as in Christian Science.” The main text was dictated to Gilbert C. Carpenter. It now appears in Miscellany, pp. 259-260. Another letter to Johnston (with correct spelling) is recorded with a date of November 28, 1905. It is in the Parke-Bernet catalog of the collection of Gen. Culver C. Sniffen, with an auction date of December 3, 1963. This second letter adds the article "the" to the above lines. An additional letter is dated December 3, 1905, in which Mrs. Eddy mentions counterfeit letters of hers that are given to the public as being authentic. Here is the original letter, along with a copy of the final text as printed later.

As mentioned above, at Christmas time in 1905, rather than have the household members at Pleasant View distracted by having to purchase presents for each other, Gilbert C. Carpenter suggested that they pool their money and use that money to purchase much needed coal for the poor of Concord, N.H. That suggestion was agreed to by all, and my collection includes the invoice for the coal from the March Coal and Grain Co. and many letters of gratitude from the recipients. The following is an example (with the spelling as it originally appeared):

“Dec. 28th 1905

Concord, N.H.

Dear Mama Eddy,–

We received the Coal that you send us Wednesday and we was very much surprise to have it and we all thank you very much for the coal and the shoes that you gave us at the fair.

We all wish you a merry Christmas.

your respectfull

Fred Charette

14 Ferry Street

Concord, N.H.”

It is jokingly said today that to give somone a gift of no meaning is to give them a lump of coal for a present, but here is a real example of the gift of coal as a valuable and well-received present. Mrs. Eddy had earlier given out at the Concord Fair shoes for the needy children of the city and the above letter was written by one who also was the recipient of Mrs. Eddy’s earlier gift to the community.

 

Christmas and Christian Science

As these busy Christmas season days go by, I thought it might be of interest to see some items on Christmas in Christian Science history.

One is this telegram that Mrs. Eddy sent out to Emma McLauthlin, inviting her on December 24, 1895, to her Christmas dinner the next day.

Of course, one book that comes to mind is Christ and Christmas, which was  issued in December, 1893. Here are images of the front cover and title-page of this rare first edition below:

Christ and Christmas, A Poem, by Reverend Mary Baker Eddy [author] and James F. Gilman [illustrator]. Boston: Edward N. Pearson, Printer, 1893. 11 illustrations. 

Another production by Mrs. Eddy for Christmas was this pamphlet:

What Christmas Means to Me, by Mary Baker Eddy. Chicago: The Book & Art Exchange, [ca. 1908].  

(This pamphlet in its first issue is extraordinarily rare. This is a separate printing of this article, which first appeared in the Ladies’ Home Journal of December, 1907. This was reprinted in the Christian Science Sentinel of December 7, 1907. Later it was included in Miscellany, pp. 261-263.

The first issue has the address of the publisher listed as 6 Madison Street, whereas the second issue has the address listed as 81 E. Madison Street. Note: minor typographical differences exist between the two issues. The Mary Baker Eddy Library has a “sixth edition” of this pamphlet, from 81 E. Madison Street, with an aquamarine color rather than the earlier green color.)

Here are images of the front cover and title-page of the rare first issue:

Although the word “Christmas” did not appear on this 1888 Christmas address title by Mrs. Eddy, it was nonetheless a Christmas message from her and is called a "Christmas Sermon" in her Miscellaneous Writings:

Finally, Calvin Augustine Frye and I wish all of you a very Merry (and old-fashioned) Christmas:

 

 

 

 

The centennial of Mrs. Eddy's birth in 1921

The relatively unnoticed centennial of the passing of Mrs. Eddy on December 3, 2010, brought to mind the perhaps controversial manner in which the centennial of her birth was marked on July 16, 1921. The Christian Science Board of Directors chose to downplay the date, maintaining that Mrs. Eddy would have wanted it that way. Perhaps they were correct in that assessment, but that she was not totally against noting her birthday is seen in her letter on her birthday  in 1882 to Clara Choate: “This is my birthday, a day of such moment to the race and of such a history to one?” (In My True Light and Life: Mary Baker Eddy Collections. Boston: The Writings of Mary Baker Eddy (2002), p. 428.)

Here is the statement from the Board of Directors:

 

However there were others who disagreed, and felt that the centennial of her birth should be marked with a special service in her honor at her birth site in Bow, New Hampshire. Back in 1919 a pyramid had been placed at the site, which by that time was owned by Christian Scientist, James Lord. A majority of the Board did not approve of that pyramid venture, starting with Adam Dickey. From the John Dittemore papers is a copy of the Board’s resolution, followed by John Dittemore’s dissenting comments:

[Board Resolution per John Dittemore papers, ca. 1918]

[John Dittemore’s Dissenting opinion]  

In 1918 a history was prepared on how the Bow site came to be purchased by John Lord for preservation. This history was in the Dittemore papers and was presumably written by him or his ally, Allan A. Beauchamp:

Dittemore, Beauchamp, Mrs. Longyear, Lord, Samuel Greenwood, and some other noted Christian Scientists at that time were devotees of the Anglo-Israel theory that maintained the British and American peoples were the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel and thus had special divine blessing. Connected to that theory was the belief that the “Great Pyramid” in Egypt were so designed as to represent prophecies of the future that could be determined by those specially adept at making such interpretations. Thus the use of a pyramid marker for the Bow site, as we see above, was heavily symbolic and not merely artistic.

The pyramid appears to have been added to the Bow homestead site early in 1919, and here are photographs of some noted individuals at the building of the site:

[Left to right, Allan A. Beauchamp, John V. Dittemore (and James Lord?)]

Here is a postcard of the site before the pyramid was added: 

Here is a photograph of the site after the pyramid had been completed:

On July 16, 1921, a commemorative event took place at the site, and here are photographs of that event:

[John Dittemore and his wife, along with Mrs. Longyear (near the wreath), and others.]

[Sarah Baker, the wife of John Baker, who owned the Bow homestead for many years and who was the son of Mrs. Eddy’s cousin, Aaron Whittemore Baker. (It was to Rufus Baker, the son of John and Sarah, that Mrs. Eddy wrote the letter that included the title of this blog.)]

 [Reporters were there to take note of the event.]

There was even a committee set up to commemorate the centennial, with its own stationery:

Eventually, in 1927, James Lord gifted the homestead land to The Mother Church, as noted in the Christian Science Sentinel:

 

It was 100 years ago today

The Beatles famously sang, “It was twenty years ago today. . . .” In our case it was one hundred years ago today that Mrs. Eddy passed away, and I thought it might be of interest to see what happened the following days.

The first starts with newspaper clippings of the news and the funeral, then Lilian Dickey’s diary notes for the first five days after Mrs. Eddy’s passing (excluding December 6, for which there is no record). Then there are letters from Calvin Frye and Laura Sargent (first page) thanking well-wishers after the news had been made public, and an admittance card for Mrs. Eddy's funeral service at her home. Finally we end with the masoleum built at Mt. Auburn Cemetery several years later, as it appears today.

“Add [i.e., the nickname for her husband Adam Dickey] phoned 8 A.M. asking me to go out to the ‘home’ [i.e., Chestnut Hill home of Mrs. Eddy] saying ‘All was over.’ I got there a little after 9. A.M.”

“Every thing quiet—sat in the ‘study’ a good deal of the day—selected her casket to day. Gen. Baker, Mr. [Mrs.?] Rathvon, Laura Sargent—James Neal. Mr. Mc Lellan—Add & myself.—”

“Our Leader was laid in her casket—”

“Funeral at 11 A.M. beautiful service—Judge Smith read— Mrs. Powers [the Second Reader of The Mother Church], the poem ‘Mothers Evening Prayer,’ returned from cemetery at 2.30 P.M.”

First page from letter by Laura Sargent giving thanks.

Admittance card into the funeral of Mrs. Eddy, signed by Director John V. Dittemore.