Content deleted Content added
70.89.48.217 (talk) |
70.89.48.217 (talk) haha |
||
Line 16: | Line 16: | ||
==Illness and death== |
|||
However, Virginia developed [[tuberculosis]], first seen in an incident some time in the middle of January, [[1842]]. While singing and playing the piano, Virginia began to bleed from the mouth, "ruptured a blood-vessel," as Edgar described.<ref>Silverman, ''Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance'', p. 179.</ref> Her health declined and she became an invalid, which drove Edgar into a deep depression, especially as she occasionally showed signs of improvement. In a letter to friend John Ingram, Edgar described his resulting mental state: "I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.poeforward.com/virginiawomb/virginia/eveleth-1-4-1848.htm|title= Poe to George W. Eveleth, 1/4/1848| archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20061127135158/http://www.poeforward.com/virginiawomb/virginia/eveleth-1-4-1848.htm |archivedate= 2006-11-27}}</ref> |
|||
When the family (Edgar, Virginia, and her mother, Maria) moved to a [[cottage]] in [[Fordham, New York]], Virginia was tended to by 25-year old Marie Louise Shew. Shew knew medical care from her father, a doctor. She actually provided Virginia with a [[comforter]] as her only other cover was Edgar's old military [[cloak]].<ref>Silverman, ''Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance'', p. 326.</ref> |
|||
[[Image:Poe's grave Baltimore MD.jpg|thumb|right|Memorial marker to Virginia Clemm, Maria Clemm, and Edgar Allan Poe in Baltimore, MD.]] |
|||
Virginia died on January 30, [[1847]] after five years of illness. Shew helped in organizing her [[funeral]], even purchasing her [[coffin]]. Shew may have also painted the only image of Virginia, a water color done after her death.<ref>Silverman, ''Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance'', p. 327.</ref> Though now buried at [[Westminster Hall and Burying Ground]], Virginia was originally buried in a [[burial vault|vault]] owned by the Valentine family, owners of the Fordham cottage.<ref>Silverman, ''Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance'', p. 327.</ref> |
|||
In [[1875]], the same year Edgar was reburied, the cemetery in which she lay was destroyed and her remains were almost forgotten. An early Poe biographer, William Gill, gathered her bones and stored them in a box he hid under his bed.<ref>Meyers, ''Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy'', p. 263.</ref> Gill's story was reported in the ''[[Boston Herald]]'' twenty-seven years after the event. Gill says that he had visited the Fordham cemetery in 1883 at exactly the moment that the [[sexton (office)|sexton]] Dennis Valentine held Virginia's bones in his shovel, ready to throw them away as unclaimed. Gill took the remains and corresponded with Neilson Poe and John Prentiss Poe in Baltimore, and arranged to bring the box down to be laid on Edgar's left side in a small bronze casket. Virginia's remains were finally buried with her husband's in [[1885]] on January 19 - the seventy-sixth anniversary of her husband's birth and nearly ten years after his current monument was erected. The same man who served as sexton during Edgar's original burial and his exhumations and reburials was also present at the rites which brought his body to rest with Virginia and Virginia's mother Maria Clemm.<ref>Miller, John C. "The Exhumations and Reburials of Edgar and Virginia Poe and Mrs. Clemm," from ''Poe Studies'', vol. VII, no. 2, December 1974, p. 47</ref> |
|||
Revision as of 15:31, 31 October 2007
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe | |
---|---|
Born | August 22, 1822 |
Died | January 30, 1847 |
Spouse | Edgar Allan Poe |
Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe (August 22, 1822 – January 30, 1847), born Virginia Eliza Clemm, was the wife of Edgar Allan Poe. She was the daughter of William Clemm, Jr. (1779-1826) and Maria Poe Clemm, the sister of Edgar's father David Poe Jr.
A man named William Gowans described Virginia as a woman of "matchless beauty and loveliness" with "a temper and disposition of surpassing sweetness"[1]
Notes
- ^ Meyers, Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy, p. 93.
References
- Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Louisiana State University Press, 1972. ISBN 0684193701.
- Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. Cooper Square Press, 1992. ISBN 0684193701.
- Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906. ISBN 1932109455.
- Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN 0060923318.