Mount Auburn: The Other World by James H. Barton
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Along Spruce Avenue at the western end of Pyrola Path, two rows of four stone memorials in a family plot; among them, in the back row, on the right, <<Julia Ward Howe, Wife of Samuel Gridley Howe>>. I first saw her memorial 25 years ago. I hear school children singing her words still, for we all had to learn them.
First published in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1862, her Battle Hymn of the Republic exhorts us to follow Christ's example, saying, "As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free..."
She may also have been thinking of her husband when she wrote those lines. A leading Abolitionist, a participant in the failed Polish revolt, Samuel Gridley Howe had also been a veteran of six years service in the Greek army, campaigning against the Ottoman Empire. Honoring his like in 1883, Julia Ward Howe published a book on the life of Margaret Fuller.
Willow Pond lies below. To reach it, we'll take Spruce
Avenue to our right and Mound Avenue to our left, looking for
White-crowned Sparrows among the monuments on the grassy
hillside. Then we'll take Thyme Path down to the pond's edge.
My maternal grandmother is remembered on the left.
Northern Rough-winged Swallows are circling the pond. We follow Azalea Path to our right and into a small, varied plantation of dogwood and crabapple surrounding a Siebold Viburnum; here, too, birds can be seen at eye level. Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler and American Redstart are working the leaves and the blossoms. I hope you have brought binoculars with very good close focus.
We return down Spruce Avenue towards the Bowditch memorial
and the front gate. At the intersection of Spruce Avenue and Fir
Avenue a striking monument commemorates the martyred early
abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey. We continue down Spruce
Avenue to Heliotrope Path, into a quiet place of lives well
lived, of jobs well done and of hopes fulfilled, untouched by
striving unless there's a Gray-cheeked Thrush about.
I want you to meet two more people. On the right, <<Joseph Coolidge/1798-1879>>. Boston merchant prominent in the China trade; paternal grandfather of my paternal grandmother. On his left, <<Eleonora Randolph/Wife of Joseph Coolidge/1796-1876>>. My grandmother's grandmother, daughter of Martha Jefferson Randolph, granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson.
Laburnum Path off Spruce takes us up to the Bigelow Chapel,
the Sphinx, and the Robert Gould Shaw memorial. Return here for
history and heroism remembered in stone and bronze on a grand
scale, and for sunlight celebrated in stained glass. Just
beyond, to the east down Chapel Avenue, a Red-eyed Vireo and a
Northern Parula sing above us. On our right sits Nathanael
Bowditch. At his side are a globe and a sextant, but he isn't a
sea captain; rather he's a mathematician. It's his book that's
important, for it holds his navigation tables. Without them
the port of Boston could not have prospered so mightily.
On our left as we approach the great Egyptian gate is the Asa Gray Garden. We bring votive candles out of Story Chapel after a memorial service in December and set them in a circle around the fountain. Imagine a circle of light against the early darkness of a winter evening. Imagine people standing in a circle around the circle of light.
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JHB for JH, MP, SZ, MP, RS, RP, AL, EM, LL, MS, SP, JC, FS,
AN et mult. alt.
A writer and consultant, Jim Barton is also co-author of Thinking on Paper and Thinking Together, both published by William Morrow. He leads instructional bird trips for the Boston Program Office of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and for the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Conservation Commission. He can be reached at redwing1986@mediaone.net and at 617/354-7435. |
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