Miss Cushing -- preparing to go with Mr. GB Blake & daughters to Europe and they sailed in about ten days.
Mrs. GBB went to Swampscott with her sons -- in about a week Dr. & I went to see her. She was very unwell. The trials of the summer were too much for her. In this month I went to N.P. made a visit, worked hard up to the cottage to put things in order for housekeeping.
When I returned to B Dr. did not get my letter, and he had gone down to -- to see Mrs. Blake, so I walked up from Rox. It was a hot eve. I lost my thin shawl and had to stop at E. Crafts and leave my carpet bag. I found Mike & wife had kept house nicely. Then we expected Dr. E.A.W. & wife every day so that we began to be anxious. But Heaven be praised they arrived, on the 16th Sept. in good health & spirits after so long a voyage.
All this looks [cool?] on paper, after having my heart almost pained with the joy & gratitude I felt, at once more beholding my beloved son & comforter. Ellens family detained her ten days
-- but I was busy packing and getting ready to depart for N.P. -- so when she was well settled in my place I left Brookline. I judged it was better for the young folks to take the cares at once and have no ifs about head of the house.
Sen. Dr. saw fit to remain on account of medical work. I commenced housekeeping at Cottage last of Oct. 18th. Susan & family staid with Mary Cushing through Aug. I was at Mary's with them about a week. S.S.W. improved very much so that when she returned to Phil. she was able to attend to her housekeeping.
I worked very hard all through this month to leave things in good order -- and to pack up what I really needed to take to the Cot. in Oct. I soon rested in N.P -- both mind & body -- and enjoyed the change of air & scene.
November
I kept so busy that I had no time to be lonely as I did all my housework. E.J.C. gave me their small cooking stove. Watty was very obliging & attentive to me
and I saw Mary & family every day. Lem Angel pd. me 33$.cts. I took 5$ for Ann Atkinson. But the times -- so many opperatives [sic] out of employ -- and vagrants moving about, that it was deemed expedient for W and I to join the Cushing family. Day before Thanksgiving. And here I am in the old chamber where I slept when a girl -- for -- years. I have had a nice time with the family and Dr. spent a few days with us. Last week, told Watty he must come to Brookline and post his books. So W. went Mond. Dec 21st.
Sund. 20th
I went to the city
Mond. 21st Dec
Watty went to Brookline to help his father
This page of the diary marks an important transition for Mary as she departs Brookline to move to her childhood home in Rhode Island, leaving the house to her son Edward and his wife Ellen, newly returned from abroad.
Her husband Charles also stays behind to continue his medical practice, and Brookline will continue to feature prominently in much of what Mary writes over the next seven years.
The period covered on this page is a busy time for Mary, and that is reflected in a departure from the usual pattern of her diary entries. There are no individual dates, other than the one at the top beginning the month of August. Instead, it is one continuous entry, partly broken up with headings for the months.
It appears that Mary wrote all of this at one time, after she was settled in Rhode Island. It has been broken up in this transcription for easier reading.
George Baty Blake & Ann Blake's daughters were Elizabeth (1842-1895) and Anna (1844-1899). Passports for the two girls and Rachel Cushing were all issued on July 6th.
The Blakes' sons were Stanton (1837-1889), George Baty Jr. (1838-1884), Arthur (1840-1893), Henry (1843-1880), and John ((1846-1861)
With the return from Europe of Edward and Ellen Wild, Mary is preparing to move to North Providence, Rhode Island, where she grew up. The "cottage" is apparently one of several small buildings on the property of her ancestral home. The main house, parts of which date to 1705, is where her daughter Mary Cushing and her family are living.
Edward and Ellen Wild arrived in New York on board the steamship the Baltic on September 14, 1857, although because of fog the ship had wait off shore for several days before the passengers could disembark.
Edward and Ellen were listed first on the ship's manifest of passengers. They were the only Americans; all of the others were Italian immigrants.
Newspapers reports said there were 135 passengers aboard, though only 42 are shown on the manifest. The manifest also lists the port of departure as Leghorn, now Livorno, Italy, but then ruled by Austria, though the newspaper accounts say the ship arrived from Liverpool. It is likely that it stopped in Liverpool before crossing the Atlantic.
The Baltic held the record, at the time of this voyage, for the fastest crossing of the Atantic.
It's not clear when or how Edward and Ellen arrived in Massachusetts from New York, but they apparently stayed with Ellen's family in Boston first.
Mary's youngest child, Walter, stayed with her in Rhode Island at first.
"Operative" is used here in the sense of "A person who is engaged in any branch of industry, trade, or profession; spec. a factory worker, an artisan." (Oxford English Dictionary). The situation described by Mary was a result of the Panic of 1857. As reported in the Newport Mercury, "The factories generally are stopping, and large numbers of operatives are cast out to support themselves as best they can." (October 31, 1857)
Walter had been helping his father keep the financial books for his the doctor's medical practice.
Edward Augustus Wild (1825-1891) was the third oldest of Mary and Charles Wild's six children who survived to adulthood.
