Great Aunts Ain't What They Used To Be

[poliphilo]

My great aunt Enid left behind two suitcases full of papers. They were originally lodged- by her instruction- with my cousin Jane and have suddenly, unexpectedly- by a process of death and down-sizing- come to me.

I knew Aunt Enid. She was tall and dignified and wore a ridiculous wig. She was a conscientious Quaker, bred dogs and lived with a long-time female companion. She was always kind to me and once gifted me with a hand-written copy of her family tree. I assumed- as one does with Great Aunts- that she was rather straight-laced, a view I had confirmed when it was conveyed to me- through my parents-  that she rather disapproved of my divorce. She was born in 1888 and lived to be a hundred.

Last night I started reading one of her diaries...

The year is 1922 and Enid is living with one woman and carrying on an affair with another. Her live-in girlfriend is also having an affair (and to complicate matters it's with Enid's sister, my Great Aunt Elfrida)- and has given her lovers identical gold rings. Enid invites Nina to stay and Smithie invites Elf and there is a charged (but painfully civilized) debate about sleeping arrangements. Enid fills page after page with speculation about who Smithie loves best and whether Nina's affections have changed. She also expresses dismay over her partner's suicidal tendencies.

She must have hoped- or she'd have had a bonfire- that all this would be aired one day.

Comments

[dadi.livejournal.com]

It is weird, isn´t it, how we remember/perceive those people, and how sometimes they turn out to have a wholly different inner life. My grandfather´s unmarried sister was the true image of a chaste, rigid spinster, and only after her death one of her friends wrote a long letter to my mother (the aunt´s preferred niece), confiding in her some of the "scandalous" things my aunt had done until not much before she died, among others with said friend. You never know...!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

With Enid we're only scratching the surface. My sister has been reading another, earlier diary and says it documents an affair she had with a man who was engaged to someone else.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

How superbly fascinating!

I have a theory about Byron's diaries, and their ritual burning by his publisher John Murray and assortment of his chums. The legend has always been that they were just too scandalous to keep, but I have a sneaking suspicion, they weren't. They were probably full of hungover self-pity, misanthropy and protracted complaints about his bowel discomfort.

One of my lecturers at uni was great friends with a Wordsworth expert, who was obsessed with the idea that there was an incestuous relationship between William and his Dorothy. They were agog to see their theory proved right when the technology became available to examine the lengthy crossed out sections of her diaries, but in fact she seems to crossed out bits that even she thought were too dull to keep.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

You may have hit on the truth there regarding Byron, especially in the light of the William/Dorothy non-revelation.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Those who read all the letters and diaries, at the burning, hinted darkly at sodomy and scandal, but I think I'd like him even more if it was all haemorrhoids and humphing.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I like your theory about Byron; in fact I find it comforting. I've often damned Murray for burning those journals.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Amazing. Hooray for Enid making sure that her fabulous love life would be discovered by later generations.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fabulous, but painful. She was a woman desperate for love, who had as many "horrid" and "rotten" times as she had "ripping" and "jolly" ones.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Heavens!

Nine

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And I've only just begun to search the archive. She kept her journal for most of her adult life.

[seaslug-of-doom.livejournal.com]

Will you? Would you?

I can't help it. I'm American. We have to Jerry Springer the heck out of everything.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Absolutely lovely. And I would love to see a transcription of these diaries.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ailz has said she'll type the diaries up. Maybe we'll put them on line or even get them published in book form. We're beginning to realize we have a treasure here.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

Publish! I'd buy them!

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

::claps hands::

Great Aunt Enid sounds like a goer!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

She was a strong minded woman. There's a lot of material I haven't looked at yet about her life as a farm worker during the Great War.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Publish!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think we may.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Well, that does sound fascinating!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. And there's much, much more. I've only scraped the surface.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read them! And, as you say, she didn't get rid of them when she could've. She explicitly wanted them read, at least by someone.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're thinking of getting them typed up and then- possibly- published in some form.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Groovy.

Somehow it puts me in mind of Vivian Mayer and her photographs coming out after her passing. Though that has a lot of mystery to it of a sort this wouldn't. But your aunt's stuff has a secret-life-revealed thing, for sure.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wonder what else there is. She kept these journals all her life- and I've only read the entries for 1922-26

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

oh wow!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm really excited by what we've got here.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I"m a great aunt, you know. But I suspect when I pass, my great nieces and nephs would be bored to death by anything I left.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

It sounds like she realized that some time in the future was better to have her life go public than when she was alive.
Lovely!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think that's right.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

As soon as you said Quaker and long-time companion I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. Although I wasn't prepared for the polyamory part of it.

Was she also a Fabian?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's nothing about politics in the diary I'm reading but as an old lady- as I knew her- she had strong views about nuclear weapons etc...

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

OMGoddess! You have just made my day! Maybe she wore that wig because her hair was actually cut so that she could cross dress while amongst friends, but pass when out in the world.

Don't ever throw those out. There is an archive in Los Angeles devoted to just lesbian history. If you decide that you no longer want to be responsible for her affects, let me know. I can arrange for you to donate those.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

There are similar British Archives, too, as well as the Women's Library at the LSE. We are good at history, here; we've been doing it for quite a while:)).

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Ok. Good. I just don't want these to be destroyed. The point is, there are people interested in Lesbian history, and this is priceless.

[rosamicula.livejournal.com]

Exactly - I can see someone making a doctoral thesis out of it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the wig was to cover hair loss. We're talking about a woman in her 80s and 90s.

We won't throw them out. We're already thinking of getting them published. I'd also like to see them end up in some sort of an archive where they'd be publicly accessible.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[athenais.livejournal.com]

How intriguing!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And there's so much more. Thus far I've read half of one diary.

Great aunts

[methodius.livejournal.com]

The same applies to cousins once or twice removed.

My mother told me of two (on different sides of the family) who were kleptomaniacs.

Should I burn my diaries now?

Re: Great aunts

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No.

The more scandalous they are the more future generations will like them.

[sovay]

She must have hoped- or she'd have had a bonfire- that all this would be aired one day.

I hope very much that you publish them. They are exactly the sort of thing people should remember about generations before their own.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes.

What we have here is a very full record of an extraordinary/ordinary life. She started keeping a diary as a teenager and carried on until she died- at 100.