The Child Was Precious To Me

Springfield, Mass.

March 31, 1879

26 Fremont St.

Dear Sister Whapham,

Yours of the 29th has reached me, and I can but thank you for your confidence.

What you write regarding R.’s last alliance is not wholly new to me. Soon after his death, an article by Rev. A. Clark of Pittsburgh appeared in the New York Tribune and was widely copied in the Eastern papers. Because Clark wrote as if he were very intimately acquainted with R., I addressed him — under the name of Emery — simply stating that I had known R. in ’65 and ’66, during the war, and that I found it hard to believe he had led such a reckless life as the newspapers implied.

Clark, supposing me a comrade of R.’s, answered twice. In my third letter—well, there is always a little that had best be left unsaid. I then made myself known to Clark, on his promise of confidence. He confirmed my suspicions that, with the second woman, no legal ceremony had been performed. When I asked for every detail he knew, he fell silent; yet some weeks later a letter arrived from Col. Hinton — Clark had forwarded him my first note, and the Colonel wrote for facts and dates of R.’s army life. After hesitation, I confessed that, unfortunately, I was R.’s wife and widow. I declared my disbelief in the “wife and children” alleged in New York. Col. Hinton believed the boy to be undoubtedly R.’s child, but to every question regarding the mother he returned no answer.

Thanks for the pictures — I think R. resembled his mother — I would like to see them in their own home. While I lived in the West I became quite familiar with the English people and their ways are not strange to me.

You must have your hands and heart full with all your babies, and how hard it is to have those young girls out from the mother’s care,^⁠[1] but poverty will not admit of sentiment, and I wish most heartily that I had a home of my own so I could care for them and look after them. My friends have nearly all met with great losses during these years of hard times and through their loss the little that I had too nearly been swept away. I shall have a home, but ready means to help others is not mine unless I earn them. And I have been quite unable to attend to teaching for three years or more, but there is a promise of better health now and I do not fear for myself. — As it is if you were only near I think —

Clark never told me you were in America, or I should have written sooner. I assumed you were in England, and thought the fewer friends knew of these disgraceful affairs the better for poor R.’s name. Had I known all I do now, I should not have feared to reveal myself to his biographer at once. At first I supposed the child’s mother had married him in good faith; that she would suffer more kindly learning she had never been a wife. The child was precious to me — I wished it no burden of disgrace. I would have remained silent for its sake — but if it is truly R.’s child, I must live for its best interest. Whatever Col. Hinton’s venture may yield, great or small, I would not consent that it fall into the mother’s hands for the child’s use.^⁠[2]

Has she lived a decent life since her connection with R.? Where is she now, and what supports her? And is she a suitable person even to have the care of her own child?  If she were relieved of that care, might she still make an honest living? I presume she cannot be older than twenty-five. And if she could only be made to see how much better to lead an honest life than the sinful one she seems to have chosen, she has many years in which to redeem first errors.

I cannot blame you for being irritated and angry with her, when you tried to benefit her, to have her bring more disgrace on your family and her own.^⁠[3] Yet now we must encourage her toward purity. Is she so bold in wickedness, so hardened that good advice and kindly acts will not touch her heart. She knows I suppose that there is such a person as myself, and you can let her know that I feel kindly toward her and would like to help her bring up the child under good influences — but I am on strange ground and do not know how to act or what to say.

I can see many ways in which I could assist you — Are you near Pittsburgh? I cannot come to see you very soon, but when I do come you need not fear—not that I shall be set down, I like country life, a tree and a green field is more to me than palaces or cathedrals in cities. Is your place isolated or are there people about you?

When I think of your work, so much care, it seems absurd to ask you to write a letter, but I am so full of questions. I have had quite a correspondence with Col. H. within the past month. I would like to know something about him. Was he known to you in England, and is he, as I judge, an honest well-minded gentleman?

If I judged R.’s friends by himself, I should not have much confidence in them. But I know that in his best moments he made friends of some of the best of people — little children and the aged loved him. My sister had a friend of both classes when he was with us there, and he seemed much attached to them and they to him.

It is so pleasant to me to hear that he was kind to you and the children. Bring up your children to fear strong drink, for it was, I fear, the undoing of R.

Did you see any of the women called Rachel Cosnahan? According to Dr. Clark, she warned R. before he came to America. I shall not talk of that — I know no more than Clark told me, for he did not give all the details of that connection. I wish I could talk and work with you instead of this miserable writing when — we can only say little, that might as well be left unsaid.

I will return the pictures safely and procure my own as soon as I can. The infurious tooth is at last extracted, and I am greatly improved. It is a cold, snowy day — blustering as December.

I embrace you all in my love.

S. E. Realf

26 Fremont St.

Sarah had evidently written an earful to Sophia about Lizzy and the children connected with Richard’s later life. Sophia first refers to “those young girls” being away from their mother’s care — the triplet daughters born in 1878. She then turns to “the child” in the singular: Richard Realf Jr., the boy whose existence Sophia had already learned from Alexander Clark and Hinton. Sophia had been told that Lizzy was never Richard’s lawful wife, but her concern did not end there. If the truth became known, what would become of Richard’s child?

Sophia’s concern for Richard’s son was not abstract for in the Nineteeth Century a child born out of wedlock was considered an illegitimate child — legally vulnerable and socially marked through no fault of thier own. From the news that Sarah shared, Sophia did not want proceeds from Hinton’s publication placed in Lizzy’s hands “for the child’s use." But she also did not wish to punish Lizzy or cast off the boy. Instead, she offered help: if Lizzy could be told that Sophia felt kindly toward her, Sophia “would gladly aid her in bringing up the child under good influences.” It was an extraordinary response from the woman Richard had abandoned. She did not ask what was owed to her. She asked what might yet be done for his son.

NOTES

¹ Sarah appears to have told Sophia that the young daughters connected with Richard and Lizzy had been left at the care-home in New York City. These were likely the triplet daughters born in 1878. What the family did not know was that Alice had died before Richard’s death; and Mabel died in New York in June 1879. Only Minnie was alive and would, by the summer of 1880 be living with her mother.

² Richard Realf Jr.’s placement in 1880 remains unclear. He does not appear in the household of his mother, Lizzy Whapham, who was then living with Minnie and John Fish, nor in the already crowded household of Sarah and John Whapham, where all fifteen of their children were still living. Richard Jr. was only about four years old when Sophia wrote this letter, and about five in 1880. Sophia’s concern that any proceeds intended for “the boy” not pass through Lizzy’s hands may reflect uncertainty over who was actually caring for him and Sarah revealing enough of Lizzie’s character that Sophia was sure that she could not be trusted with money meant for Realf’s son.

³ Sarah had given Sophia information about Lizzy’s conduct after Richard’s death. By 1880, Lizzy was living with Minnie and John Fish, whom she later married.