[Author’s note: This series of excerpts from the Regina Shober Gray diary began here.]

In August 1879, the Grays[1] were back in Massachusetts after their lengthy European sojourn, and Mrs. Gray’s diary listed a fatiguing (if doubtless engaging) social round. The Grays’ adult children were in and out of the house: daughter Mary and sons Frank, Sam, Rege, and Morris, along with Sam’s wife Carrie, who was expecting their first child.[2] On the dates of these diary entries, Dr. Gray was in reasonably good spirits, but he remained in chronic pain:

Beverly Farms, Sunday, 3 August 1879: It seems to me I never suffered more with heat than yesterday & today; blazing, breathless, sultry August weather, without the delicious sea change, which has heretofore given us such refreshment daily at 11 a.m. – the thermom at 93 & 4 for hours – and even at 5 p. m. up to 87! There is some promise of thunder gusts by & by, which may cool us off a little.

We have had a delightful summer till now, cool & bright, but with abundant showers, so that the foliage is still green & fresh. The heat has been the more trying to us, as it was accompanied by an awful nuisance, an invasion of potato-bugs – the Colorado beetle, a rather pretty thing too of its kind – a thick oval [insect] with brown & gold stripes, a reddish head, and many red feet. They swarmed over piazza and house walls, from Mr. Haven’s potato patch, on his lawn.

It seems when a lawn is run down that the right thing to do, to bring it back up again, is to plant it with potatoes. The patch runs just outside our hedge – when the creatures had eaten away every green thing on the potato plants, they invaded everything else in the neighborhood – they swarmed in platoons – and kept Sam [Gray][3] and me engaged all day in killing them – and the day before Carrie [Gray] and I did it. We began by taking them on the end of a stick & dropping them into a pail of soap-suds – but soon had to give up such delicate measures & just stamp them out – a nasty nauseating job wh. makes me sick and gives me horrid dreams of the crawling torments; but we literally killed them by the scores & hundreds. Mr. Haven’s farmer say they will be all gone in a couple days now; that Mr. H. has employed boys daily for five weeks to kill them off…

Carrie seems poorly to-day – I fear she got over tired on Friday helping me get rid of these potato beetles. She thinks of going up to town tomorrow for a consultation with her Doctor – but I think he would better come here, and save her such fatigue, even if he do charge $20 or $30 for it; and I told her, Dr. Gray would pay the fee.

Morris [Gray][4] comes home from Cotuit, on Tuesday – tomorrow Rege [Gray][5] goes off on a week’s cruise with Augustus Hemenway;[6] and Frank [Gray][7] goes to make Oscar Iasigi[8] a visit at Lynn… Sidney Burgess[9] has lent Rege a very nice row boat, with moveable mast, centre board &c. He sailed here with it in tow, and left it at our mooring – Sam & Frank had been inquiring for one to hire or buy, all around Beverly & Salem, in vain. Rege, meeting Burgess in the [train] cars, & knowing him to be a boating man, asked him where one could be got – and lo, this is the result. Sam says “That Rege is a lucky cuss. The rest of us spend hours of time & patience inquiring round for a thing, wh. we are willing pay a fair price for – and can’t get it – while Rege has but to open his mouth & speak – and the thing drops into it”!!

It is a kind thing in Burgess – and the boys find it very convenient, especially these fine moonlight nights for rowing.

Thursday, 14 August 1879: F.C.G. has come home from his visit to the Iasigis at Lynn; he and Oscar drove down one day to dine; and Oscar, who is nothing if not statistical – and whose information is encyclopedic on all subjects – informed us that the summer population of Mt. Desert[10] this season is 4,000 souls – 3,500 of these belonging to the fairer & worthier sex – and the other 500 being of the male persuasion, mostly hobbledehoys!! An alarming disproportion truly!

Yesterday Georgie Eaton[11] & Katie Lowell[12] came over for tennis & tea – and luckily George Gardner[13] & Willie Hodges dropped in also. Today Harry Pickering[14] comes for the day – also [Mary Gray’s friend] Annie Dixwell, either to day or tomorrow for a meeting of the “History Club” – and to day I expect Dora Foster, my invaluable Dora,[15] with her 2 nieces to pass the day so kitchen as well as parlor will have its guests. Fortunately Mary Jane, good as gold, is always ready to cook for any number & to any extent. We have a constant run of guests here – the situation is central & people drop in – or, crossing the lawn to the Beach, stop for a chat.

Helen Loring[16] & Ellen Parkman came for bathing – and Mary [Gray][17] is glad to have companions on the water. The Eatons & the Lorings call frequently, to take us to drive; we had the pleasure of seeing [Carrie Gray’s sister] Alice Weld[18] several times, during her stay at Magnolia – she went home yesterday & Edith [Weld][19] came down. Carrie cannot go much to see them – it tires & jars her – and we are glad to welcome here.

Bessie Lee Shattuck[20] comes often to sit with her, also Fannie Porter – old friends of hers. I am glad to encourage all this coming & going, for our young people have an anxious time at best – and it helps to take them a little out of our sorrows. And it helps Doctor [Gray] himself too – he often gets quite cheered up talking to our various callers and when he does not feel like seeing strangers, he drops off to walk in the grounds, &c.

The newest engagement we hear of is Susie Hinckley (her father was a Northampton Lyman, who took his maternal grandfather’s name and inherited his property) to Rev. Leverett Bradley[21] – assistant at Trinity [Church] to Phillips Brooks.[22] We hear his father was a country butcher – but the cloth “ennobles” all who wear it, I suppose – beside he may prove himself a modern Cardinal Wolsey – who knows! as to ability & success.

Continued here.

Notes

[1] Hedwiga Regina Shober (1818–1885) was married to Dr. Francis Henry Gray 1844–80. Both entries from the Hedwiga Regina Shober Gray diary, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections.

[2] Ralph Weld Gray (1880–1944) was born on 19 January 1880.

[3] The Grays’ second son, Samuel Shober Gray (1849–1926), had married Caroline Balch Weld in January 1879.

[4] The diarist’s youngest son, Morris Gray (1856–1931).

[5] Mrs. Gray’s third son, Reginald Gray (1853–1904).

[6] Augustus Hemenway (1853–1931). A friend of the whole Gray family, he married Harriet Dexter Lawrence (1858–1960) in 1881.

[7] The Grays’ eldest son, Francis Calley Gray (1846–1904).

[8] Oscar Iasigi (1846–1884); he is also mentioned here.

[9] Reginald Gray’s classmate Sidney Williams Burgess (1854–1914).

[10] The summer resort in Maine.

[11] Presumably Georgiana Goddard Eaton (1857–1914); her brother William Storer Eaton (1854–1949) was a contemporary of Rege Gray’s.

[12] Katharine Lowell (1858–1925), who was married to Alfred Roosevelt 1882–91 and the Rev. T. James Bowlker in 1902.

[13] George Peabody Gardner (1855–1939), Katie Lowell’s cousin and a Gray family connection. He married Esther Burnett (whose parents appear elsewhere in the diary) in 1884.

[14] A sometime suitor of the Grays’ daughter Mary.

[15] A former Gray family servant, mentioned in the 1860s volumes of the diary.

[16] Mrs. Gray’s sister-in-law Sallie Gray’s cousin Helen Loring (b. 1851).

[17] Mary Clay Gray (1848–1923).

[18] Alice Balch Weld (1844–1902).

[19] Carrie Gray’s younger sister Edith Weld (1848–1938).

[20] Elizabeth Perkins Lee (1846–1931) married Dr. Frederick Cheever Shattuck in 1876.

[21] The Rev. Leverett Bradley (1846–1902) married Susan Greenough Hinckley on 3 December 1879.

[22] The Rev. Phillips Brooks (1835–1893), Bishop of Massachusetts 1891–93.