Queer Places:
Brattleboro, Vermont 05301, Stati Uniti
Central Cemetery, 327 North St, Randolph, MA 02368, Stati Uniti
Mary J. Wales (died August, 1916) was a childhood friend of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.
After Freeman's father's death, Freeman was invited back to
Randolph to live with a childhood friend, Mary John Wales, and her family. The
Wales's farmhouse was large and comfortable, and Freeman was given several fine
rooms—a parlor where she could receive guests and several bedrooms—for her own.
In Mary John Wales, Mary Wilkins found a soul mate and life-long companion; a
strong and forceful woman, Mary John never married and for many years not only
ran the household but "managed" the practical details of Freeman's life, leaving
her the leisure to pursue her writing. [1]
Mary John Wales, Freeman once half-jokingly told a visitor, "shuts me in my study each morning and won't let me out till I have written at least fifteen hundred words". Over the next thirty years, between 1898 and 1928, her total volume of writing included ten more novels, twelve more collections of short stories, and many uncollected stories, articles, and poems. Freeman continued to live with Mary John Wales and her family until her marriage at the age of forty-nine in 1902. It was her friend Kate Upson Clark who arranged for Mary Wilkins and Charles Manning Freeman to meet at the home of Henry Alden sometime in 1892 or 1893. Seven years younger than she, Charles Freeman had received his medical degree from Columbia College and at one time had briefly held the position of medical examiner in the Bureau of Pensions in Washington, D.C.
It is impossible to know whether or not Mary Freeman experienced discord with Mary John Wales over the possibility of Freeman's marrying. After 1897, when Mary Wales's father died, Freeman supported her friend financially, even lending her at one point all of the royalties from one of her novels. In that same year, 1897, Mary Wilkins became engaged to Charles Freeman but continued to delay her wedding some five more years. When Mary and Charles finally did marry, Mary Wales was witness to the wedding. After moving with her husband to New Jersey, Freeman continued to help Mary Wales financially; each year she also returned to Randolph to visit. When Wales fell seriously ill in the spring of 1916, Freeman wrote poignantly to fellow author Florence Morse Kingsley: "My husband and I expect to go to Randolph, Mass., next Monday. That is where I made my home with friends after my own family died. My life long friend there is dying". Though she and Charles may have indeed made the trip to Randolph at this time, Freeman apparently did not return in August for Wales's funeral.
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