Partner Maria Louise Pool, buried together
Queer Places:
306 Liberty St, Rockland, MA 02370
Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Rockland, Massachusetts 02370, Stati Uniti
Caroline M. Branson (March 12, 1837 – January 10, 1918) was the long-time companion of Maria Louise Pool (1841-1898).
Pool met Caroline M. Branson in their twenties. Branson was, in the tradition of lesbian romantic friendships as described by Lillian Faderman, her life-long companion. The two women lived together for thirty-two years. They moved to Brooklyn in 1870 but in 1877 returned to Massachusetts where they settled in a house that had been a station of the underground railroad in the town of Wrentham, the place where Caroline Branson had grown up. Pool was a great lover of Yorkshire terriers, and the two women had a succession of dogs. These also appeared in many of Pool's stories.
Pool's and Branson's happy years in Wrentham came to an end in 1894 when Pool felt impelled to move back to Rockland due to her mother's old age and her sister Amelia's ill health. Branson and Pool built a new house near Pool's childhood home. Pool was at her most productive, writing novels and short stories in quick succession. She was unexpectedly struck down with pneumonia in the spring of 1898, dying in May that year. Branson survived Pool by many years but was buried, at her request, next to Pool in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Rockland.[1]
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