Another Year Older…
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
Another year has rolled around. It seems not that long ago that I was doing a post to wish Emma a happy birthday. Has it been a YEAR already??? But then, if you’re born in 1801, I guess you might not care all that much that time is marching on for the likes of me!
Still, it is hard to pass up this day as it once meant so much to one of my two diarists, so:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EMMA!
To me, you don’t look a day over 21…
Happy Birthday, Charles!
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
Today, May 31 — Memorial Day in the US — marks the 210th birthday of Charles Joshua Smith, Emma’s brother and Mary’s husband. (Maybe I shall start calling them “birtharies” = birthdays/anniversaries.)
Charles was the second child, and first son, of Charles and Augusta Smith. His elder sister, Augusta, had been born the previous February (1799).
It might be interesting to note, in the Woodford diary (see previous post), that Augusta senior makes mention of the imminent birth of Little Augusta:
“[P]ossessed of each other’s love & confidence, founded on the most perfect esteem & a similarity of character & temper, our days glide on in uninterrupted harmony, & we have no anxiety for the future. Such a state of perfect happiness seems too much for my lot in this World; I cannot expect it to last: I pray God that I may not be spoiled by this prosperity, & that I may bear a reverse with resignation & patience. Now, love & fortune smile upon me, & I find myself near becoming a Mother, an event which will give pleasure to many of those nearly connected with me.”
Augusta had three sisters; only two of those three married; only one of would have children (Maria, the Marchioness of Northampton would produce two surviving children, son Spencer and daughter Elizabeth Compton). Augusta and Charles senior would produce nine children, all of whom lived to adulthood, if not exceptionally far into that adulthood. Charles Joshua, for instance, died a few months shy of his 31st birthday; Augusta died only aged 37.
But it is difficult not to be curious about Augusta, Mamma Smith’s, comment about “becoming a Mother, an event which will give pleasure to many of those nearly connected with me.” This could, of course, connect to grandparents — who always seem to relish the advent of grandchildren. At this point (1798) both Augusta’s mother, Sarah Smith (née Gilbert) and mother-in-law Judith Smith (née Lefevre) were alive. [In fact, Judith lived until 1808; Sarah two years longer, until 1810). Augusta’s father, Joshua Smith, lived a widower until 1819. From letters, the maternal Smiths took great delight in their toddling grandchildren Augusta and Charles. In 1804, Grandmamma Sarah writes that she has charge of “our little Squire“:
“he is so fond of going in the Cabriole, & indeed he is so good there is no denying him; Augusta has given him up to me & I have undertaken to cure him of Whining & fretting, & I can assure you we have not once in her absence had a Crying fit with us, some times a little naughty at Lessons: but do not suppose I flatter myself with the continuance of his good humour when they return; he has not had his Sisters to contend with. I expect them on Sunday or Monday.”
By then, Emma (1801) and Fanny (1803) had been born, so the “little Squire” already had half his quota of sisters!
And yet, the person most “nearly connected” with Augusta would of course be her own husband. Charles Smith had lost his first wife, Susanna Devall, at a very young age. Her monument inscription in the little church at Tawney tells that she “bore a long and painful illness, with the most Pious Submission to the will of God”. She died 26 October 1796, “in the 27th Year of her Age.” I have never found an indication that she and Charles, though married in 1791, had had any children.
The Devalls, however, remained a fixture in the lives of the Smiths of Suttons – Susanna’s sister Elizabeth married Charles Scrase Dickins (or Dickens); her son Charles would marry Lady Elizabeth Compton. A single remaining-single Miss Devall haunts the diaries of Emma, though there is only one mention of her brother (John).
Charles senior was an old father – 42 years old when his first child (little Augusta) was born, compared to his wife being just past her 27th birthday. Papa Charles, living only until 1814, is a somewhat shadowy figure, especially since Emma’s diaries do not begin until the year following, 1815. There exists, however, this delightful though short missive to little Augusta, dated c1807:
“My dear Augusta
As you wrote me so pretty a French letter [note! Augusta was only about 7 or 8 years old!] I will not wait until I see you to let you know how much I was pleased with it… my little Maid is good and I shall find your Mamma and all of you quite well tomorrow afternoon — I am
Y:r affectionate Father
Charles Smith“
Happy Birthday, Emma!
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
On this date – 27 September – in 1801, Emma Smith was born.
Unlike Mary Gosling (who mentions only the birthdays of her children; never Charles’ or her own), Emma’s diaries make running comments on the birthdays of her mother and all her siblings. She also comments upon her own ‘natal day’, in both her diaries and her letters. I especially like these, written in 1821:
from the diary, 27 Sept – “God grant I may grow in virtue as in years”
and from a letter to Aunt Judith Smith, dated 28 Sept – “It is quite alarming to think I have completed a score of years & left my teens entirely, I shall fancy I begin to feel old”.
She continues, by listing a series of gifts given her: “–Augusta made me present of an ivory opera glass Fanny a pretty blue bead necklace she has strung. Eliza a most excellent pen knife, Charlotte a little satin pincushion, & Maria a silk mark for a book made on the bobbin machine.”
Happy Birthday, Mary
February 2nd, 1800 and Mary Gosling’s birth was recorded in the diary of Eliza Chute (her mother’s “sister of the heart,” in other words her BFF). So happy 209th birthday Mary! Being a fellow Aquarian, I feel sure I understand her a little better than others might…
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 