1877 - 1879: The Missing Years

Late in 1997, I received a message on my answering machine. A woman, identifying herself as Barbara Aiken from Silver Springs, Maryland, wanted to talk to me—about Ada. Intrigued and excited, I returned her phone call immediately and discovered a living relation.

Barbara Aiken’s husband Chris is a direct descendant of Ada’s sister Mary —Mamie. Having taken an interest in her husband’s genealogy, Barbara had gone looking in St. Louis and the tiny township of Elsah, Illinois, where we have already accompanied Ada in the spring of 1876. The village of Elsah was founded in 1853 by Ada and Mamie’s maternal grandfather, Gen. James Semple; the Semple, Ames and Turner families, each in their turn, had established substantial country residences on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi.

By this time I too had done my share of poking around St. Louis and Elsah. The good people of Elsah suggested that Barbara, in her pursuit of family history, might want to be in touch with that woman in New Hampshire who had Ames/Turner diaries.

In 1890, Barbara told me, Mamie Ames was married to Wayman Crow Cushman, nephew of a preeminent nineteenth century actress, Charlotte Cushman. Mamie and Wayman had two sons, Henry and Robert. Henry married Ann Adine Lumaghi (hence the Lumaghi passport in the box with the diaries). Henry and Ann were Barbara’s husband’s maternal grandparents.

Then Barbara gave me the most unexpected piece of information, to which I have already alluded: in 1936, some of Mamie’s own girlhood diaries, those covering the period from 1876 to 1880, were published by Scribner under the title She Wrote It All Down.

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From the time the family left for Europe in 1876 until 1880 when they returned to St. Louis, Mamie kept her own faithful account of their travels and education. A mere "child" of twelve at the beginning of this period, her experiences mirrored and expanded upon Ada’s writings, filling in gaps the contents of which I could only infer from later mention. Not only could I now corroborate spellings and fill in a host of question marks, I could learn how the family viewed Ada herself, at least through Mamie’s eyes. Barbara most kindly sent me a copy of the book. She would later provide me with yet another of Ada’s journals.

 

Included with the book was a contemporary review from the Christian Science Monitor. It read, in part: "Her [Mamie’s] diary is doubly delightful, in that while it is depicting an era in which there were manners and conventions more circumspect than those prevailing today where young ladies are concerned, it also reveals the character of a girl of exceptional wit, perception and instinctive taste. And all of this at a time when her viewpoint was still naturally naïve and romantic." Mamie’s observations reflected, of course, the perspective of a younger mind, but this mind, too, had been already well educated and suggested the budding of a sweet but sharp intellect. A typical comment from Mamie: "These Abbeys are all in ruins – but I like ruins. They are prettier than things when they are new."

Naïve and romantic, indeed. Along with her version of their travels, Mamie provided a little sister’s jaundiced view of a big sister’s love life. A proper Victorian young lady kept her emotions in check and her thoughts to herself – even with a younger sister, it would seem. Comparing entries day-by-day, it became clear that Ada was a very private person, particularly in matters of the heart. Mamie, and apparently the rest of the family, interpreted this as a fundamental, inviolable coldness on Ada’s part. Of course, we by now know better.

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My box included no diaries or journals covering the two years from June, 1877, through mid-1879; Mamie’s diaries provided valuable primary source material for this period. The family’s travels could now be sketched in nicely.

According to Mamie, the family left Paris in mid-June, 1877, traveling first to Trouville, where they took up residence on the coast of Normandy at the Hotel Rôches Noires for a month. It was during this time that Lucy engaged the services of a French governess for the children, one Mlle. Eugénie Quillard whom the children called Nini. Nini, Mamie reported, "had occupied a similar position with Lady Munster in England, and with the Countess Koutouzoff in St. Petersburg." Interestingly enough, Nini’s niece, Margaret Quatremain, would one day become governess to Ada’s own daughter, Marion.                                     

Lucy Ames, her four children, Nini and Adeline, the maid, journeyed on to Germany and Switzerland: to Cologne, up the Rhine to Wiesbaden, Frankfurt-am-Main, Heidelberg, Baden Baden and Schaffhausen, then to Zurich, Ragaz, the Righi Kulm, Lucerne, through the Brunig Pass to Giessbach, Interlaken, Grindelwalk, Thonne, Berne, and Lausanne. Here they settled for the winter of 1877-78, renting the Château de Coppet, now called the Château des Tourelles, in Ouchy just outside Lausanne on Lake Geneva. Mamie remembered an English tutor coming in every morning; there were also French and music lessons. Lucy or Nini read aloud to the children during the evenings.

The following summer was spent touring northern Italy, Lake Como, Lake Lugano and Venice, where the family moved into the still famous Hotel Danieli. After a time, they moved on to Trieste, then to Vienna and Carlsbad in Austria.

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Mamie’s diary picked up again in Berlin in September, 1878, where she and Ada were placed in a school run by the Fräuleins Lemcke. Tante Gretchen and Tante Clio ("tante" being German for "aunt"), two "maiden ladies" who took in English speaking girls desiring to acquire proficiency in the German language, also tutored German-speaking day students in English – young gentlemen of the nobility, for the most part, primarily officers in training at the Kriegsakademie, the War College, Germany’s equivalent of West Point.

Mamie described the school thus: "They [the sisters Lemcke] had a small private school, which offered a homelike environment, and certain social contacts, which were considered advantageous. It was situated at 73 Grossbeerenstrasse, in a pleasant apartment. The salon and dining room were heated by very large white-tiled porcelain stoves, reaching almost to the ceiling. The bedrooms had no heat, but by this time we had become inured to chilly apartments, as central heating was practically unknown in Europe at that time. There were only three other girls in the school, Violet Cass from New York; Marguerite Quatremain, the niece of our governess, of whom we were very fond; and also a niece of Frl. Lemcke." [There were actually several other students as well.] Music and singing lessons for the girls were provided by Herr Karl Schäeffer (upon whom the girls conferred the pet name of "Schäefferchen"). The Lemckes provided tuition in German grammar, literature and history. Instruction in drawing and painting was provided by instructors who also come in expressly for the purpose.

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The family visited St. Petersburg, Russia, during the Christmas holidays of 1878-79. Outdoors it was forty below zero; in the apartment the family leased at the Hotel d’Europe, Mamie noted, rooms were kept at eighty above.

 "As my sister Ada was now practically what we called ‘a young lady’ in those days," Mamie continued her narrative, "my mother decided she would again take part in social life, which she had avoided doing to any extent up to the present time on account of poor health and a natural disinclination.

"Before leaving America she [their mother] had been given personal letters of introduction to the most important US ambassadors in Europe by President Grant and also General Sherman, but it was only in Russia that she made any use of them.

Edwin Stoughton

"Our minister in St. Petersburg was at that time Mr. Edwin Stoughton, who, with his wife Mrs. Stoughton and his niece Louise Stoughton, lived in great style at the American Embassy and entertained lavishly. [Mr. Stoughton’s card was tucked in one of Ada’s journals, identifying him as an "Envoyé Extraordinaire et Ministre Plenipotentiare" of the United States of America in Russia.]

"The Stoughtons were indeed charming to our family, and in fact seemed proud to show the Russians two such beautiful and distinguished compatriots as my mother and my sister, and were untiring in their efforts to open all doors and make their stay a success.

"My sister was just 17 years old, and was considered the most beautiful girl who had been in St. Petersburg for many a day. She was called ‘The American Pearl’ and created quite a sensation. There were naturally many suitors for her hand, but my mother was extremely opposed to ‘foreign marriages,’ and frowned on such a possibility.

"Among Ada’s admirers was a delightful young Russian nobleman whom everybody called by his ‘petit nom" Sacha [this was a young gentleman by the name of Count Alexander von Adlerberg (1860-1955); his calling card reads "Alexandre d’Adlerberg," and identifies him as an officer in the elite Preobrajensky Guards]. Although Ada remained unmoved by his devotion, Sacha quite went to my own school-girl head, and I regretted that I was only 13 years old, and could not have a go at him myself."

Later, Mamie would write: "Just after my return from Russia I thought so much of dear old Sacha. I pity you, dear old fellow. I think I was more in love with him than Ada. Next month he is going to pass by Berlin, and he has written Mama to ask permission to see Sis. I hope Mama will allow him. He has not much pleasure now, poor dear."

Ada will have much to tell us on the subject of Sasha...

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"We had a regular guide," Mamie continue, "who took us out every day, and we ‘improved our minds’ while my mother and sister frequented ‘le grand monde’ and had a gay time.

"A royal wedding, that of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, took place that winter, to which my mother and Ada were invited."

Alexander II

An historical aside: the rule of Alexander II, liberator of forty million Russian serfs, was drawing to its tumultuous end as Lucy brought her children to St. Petersburg that winter of 1878-79. Revolutionaries would make constant attempts on the czar’s life, finally succeeding in his assassination in 1881. Twenty years of chaos, nihilism and revolution provided the backdrop for Ada’s season "at court."

Ada and her mother stayed on in St. Petersburg into February, 1879, then Ada returned to Berlin and her mother to America, to be absent that entire summer. The Lemckes took charge of the Ames children for the summer, a villa in Schweizermühle, Saxony, having been engaged for the purpose. In April, 1879, Mamie first mentioned a wedding that would soon be taking place.

"The older girls of the school with one of the Frl. Lemcke had received an invitation to attend the wedding of the daughter of Frau von Armin. As this family belonged to the ‘haute noblesse’ [the high nobility] and had immense estates in Schwedt, and as the festivities would last at least 4 or 5 days, our household was naturally much excited over the prospect.

"The preparations were arduous and exacting, as each guest was expected to contribute something in the way of entertainment to the occasion.

"It has been arranged that in the place of Violet, Ada and Margot will go to the wedding of Frau von Armin’s daughter! As Violet had not been very good or polite lately, and as the wedding is on Sunday, she is not going. Her parents will not allow her to go to a party on Sunday."

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We now rejoin a decidedly more mature, worldlier Ada, as she takes up her journal in the fall of 1879.