Helen Hunt Jackson 4-1-7 transcription
Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 4, Ms 0348, Box 1, Folder 7, Letters from Sara Thibault to Helen Banfield (HHJ's niece), Miss Woolsey, and Mrs. Johnson concerning HHJ's death
Transcribed by Nancy Knipe, 2002
1. Letter from Sara Thibault to Miss Banfield.
1817 Hyde Street. San Francisco Cal.
15 August 1885
My dear Miss Banfield,
Ever since Mrs. Jackson came here last March, I have had the great pleasure of seeing her almost daily. She was good enough to entrust to me the overlooking and packing of her things and yesterday after they carried her away from us, her maid Effie and I carried out to the letter her instructions. We have filled two large trunks for you which Mr. Jackson is [to] forward today to the care of Mr. James M. Slater, the Berkeley, on 5th Ave and 9th Street, New York.
Mr. Jackson thinks you must know why this is done instead of their being sent directly to you.
I am sorry to say they are not packed as carefully and neatly as I would have done them and as Mrs. Jackson would have wished. But we had very little time and I have not the strength to do the actual work myself - you will find things put in promiscuously, but I trust safely, and nothing injured. I should like to have taken every thing out, refolded and placed these more systematically - but there was another reason too. I could not bear to go over them like that: so much was already in the trunks and it seemed too hard to look at more than I could help.
As she said you were to have every thing except a few specified articles -- &c. for Effie, and some books and little things for different friends - we packed faithfully all we found.
In the third tray of the small square trunk are some parcels addressed to different people
Miss Mamie Banfield, Miss Kitty Banfield, Mrs. W. Davenport, Mrs. Oliver Johnson -- these Mrs. Jackson said you would forward to them. Her sealskin jacket and muff go today to the furrier Backus (Broadway nearly opposite Grace Church, New York) who is to send a receipt for them to Mr. Slater.
I think these are all the business details I can give you & I am very tired still and perhaps can not remember. If anything more comes to me I will write again at once.
Effie and I worked from twelve o'clk [sic] to half past five - and beside sorting and arranging I was for four hours burning all the letters and papers as I promised Mrs. Jackson I would do.
Mr. Jackson tells me he has not written you - and I am sure you will be wishing to hear about her last days and of what has been done "since." He is worn out and prostrated and not able just now to write, but of course you will hear from him later.
It is only three weeks ago that I noticed any marked change in Mrs. Jackson - until then, though she grew steadily thinner she looked bright and well always, and was interested in every thing though she said often she did not feel equal to talking unless she just wanted to.
But at the end of July she began to look ill and worn, and just after this the Doctor told her what she feared was the trouble. You must feel satisfied that every thing was done for her - one of our best allopathic physicians whom Mr. Jackson called in agreed with Dr. Boericke's diagnosis entirely and all remedies and alleviations he suggested had been already tried. She, mercifully, did not know just what her disease was, although for six weeks she has said constant "I shall never get well now."
The nausea became more and more unbearable, but there was no pain, for the doctor gave her morphine last Saturday, renewing the doses all the time, and she has been unconscious ever since, except for a few minutes. This saved her all suffering which I believe would have been very dreadful. She used often to say she would rather have had pain than the nausea, but I do not think until these last three weeks that that was more than most uncomfortable. She was able to forget in talking sometimes, and I used to comfort myself that if so, bad as it was, it might be worse. As it was, poor dear!
You know how she could bear things. You know how calmly and bravely she regarded death, and she talked of leaving this world with the same composure she would spoken of leaving San Francisco.
Your photograph was always in the little frame of the calendar beside her bed - she talked often of you.
The end came very peacefully at ten minutes past four on Wednesday - and on Thursday she was dressed in a soft white cashmere gown made long and full and trimmed with lace frills around the neck and down the front with a loose soft satin ribbon bow at the throat.
She looked very sweet and peaceful. There were some clover blossoms from Mr. Jackson on her breast, and some lovely roses and begonias from some others.
A good many people sent wreaths and crosses, but those were placed around the room. You know she only liked loose flowers, not those made things. But when she was taken away a wreath of California laurel alone went with her. We knew it would not fade.
At eleven yesterday morning Dr. Stebbins, the Unitarian clergyman came and a few people who had found out when the service was to be. She wanted everything as quiet and simple as possible, and it was so.
Dr. Stebbins read her "Last Words" and then made a short and very good prayer, and then everyone went away, except the six gentlemen who carried her out of the house.
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This seems to me a very unsatisfactory letter, but I hope it will tell you some thing. I am so sorry I am still so tired and worn out that I can not write better. If you wish to know anything further and will ask me I shall be very glad to tell you.
Yours sincerely,
Sara Thibault
2. Various letters from Sara Thibault to Miss Woolsey and Mrs. Johnson on several continuous sheets folded, with dates ranging from 9/7/1885- back to 8/14/1885.
1317 Hyde Street
San Francisco
Sept. 7, 1885
My dear Miss Woolsey:
No, I was not an old friend -- Mrs. Jackson often said I might have been her own child, but I loved her dearly, dearly [sic] and I tried all I could to make her feel she was not all alone. You know how bright and brave and strong she was -- she never faltered or broke down until Mr. Jackson came -- and she had been dreading that. So often in the last talks we had when she spoke of the end so calmly, she would smile and say, "You are going to help me, you will not be less brave than I"! And I did choke away all the sorrow while I was with her. But now I feel as if I never did half enough. I did go nearly every day but I never like to stay very long. I was always afraid of tiring her, and waited and waited to do so many things until she should be stronger. She was always talking of my not being well and not over taxing myself. She never would admit half that she was suffering, only now and then when I was ashamed of not controlling my own depression, she would say, "Nothing is so bad as thinking of myself, dear!" To tell you how she appreciated the least thing ever done for her -- how she could be touched by a word or a look would be to write pages and tell you nothing new.
Did I tell you that as I had promised I burned all her letters and every bit of manuscript I found in her table. You can imagine what that was. I do not think I knew what I was doing or I could not! Mr. Jackson told me afterwards that the Doctor gave the morphine at just the right time, and that she was spared all the extreme agony which longer consciousness would have brought. She had wished all along to have an examination made that they might at least know what had puzzled them so long. For she was never told the real trouble -- she had a horror of the disease and her own theory was, as she perhaps told you, something wrong at the base of the brain after the long nerve prostration, or else possibly consumption of the bowels. But the night before she died, the last time she spoke she said, "No, Will, they need not try to find out now, they must know." It was almost the only thing she said -- Both doctors said there was absolutely no doubt and so no examination was made. I heard indirectly through my friend Miss McLane of you the other day. She had written that she hoped that some people here would go to Mrs. Jackson. But as you know Mrs. Jackson was never able to see any one -- unless it was some poor person she could help. Over and over when I proposed to take her different friends of mine who could have been far nicer to her than I ever was, she would shake her head and refuse - "she wanted no one else - she had to make no effort with me. I did not expect her to entertain me - she could send me away when she liked" - and once or twice she said, "I am too vain, they must not see me looking like this." And we laughed about it. But she did not change - did not even look really ill until about three weeks before the end, though she grew steadily thinner, but that did not show in bed. And she only looked suffering on the 7th and 8th of August - the last two days before the morphine. Then there was much feverishness, and her eyes were full of pain and restlessness and it hurt her to talk. Will you kindly say to Mrs. Johnson that I am very grateful for her letter -- as I am for yours, dear Miss Woolsey. I deserve no thanks - I did so little - nothing to compare to all she did for me. But her great generousness never counted that. Believe me Yours sincerely,
Sara Thibault.
San Francisco - Sept. 10, 1885.
My Dear Miss Woolsey:
As soon as I can get it, I will send you the "Overland Monthly" which perhaps you have not seen, and which contains some few things that were as they are described - but most of the article is inaccurate. She did like the news of the house where she lay so long, and was always saying how comfortable she was. Mr. Jackson, too, said she could not have been more so in her own house - and she had no care. The view was a great thing, and she was always turned towards it. She bought a little stained table which stood at her left beside the bed, and on it she kept besides her writing things and her medicine, her letters and her magazines. She did often speak of you and always told me when a letter from you came -- she always said -- "sometime I want to tell you about Miss Woolsey, one of my dearest, best friends." But she never felt like really talking about anything deliberately. It was in ways like that that she showed the weakness and suffering. She wished just to speak idly of whatever came into her head -- unless it was about someone's troubles, or to lecture me tenderly for my own good. As I wrote, you the other day, she said constantly, "It's because I make no effort, dear, that I like to have you with me." She began always by telling me of the doctor's visit, and what she had eaten, and of the waters and tonics and appetite giving preparation she was for the moment trying -- and week and after week something would be given up. We both thought the trouble must be nervous frailty. She could while talking so often eat six or seven spoonfuls of something quite easily, and then she would say -- "perhaps now I shall go on like this--" but next day there would be a change and something to be gone over again.
She tried, Oh--she tried in every way to get well, but she did not care to rally. For herself life seemed to have lost its value. She said she was only going to be a sad thought to those who loved her if she lived -- "One does not recover entirely from an illness like this, at my age," she said, "and if I cannot work for my Indians, how can I bear it"?
She always look [sic] so sweet and fresh in her pretty pale blue and white cashmere jackets. She took quite an interest in a delicate blue gown which was made for her to wear when she sat up--but we put it away when finished and did not talk of it anymore. I asked her to let me write for her sometimes, and many letters about the "Prince's Little Sweetheart" and some to other people she would let me do. "Acquaintances can wait. My friends I must write to as long as I can. I shall seem so much more idle, if I give that up -- and no one must know to be worried about me one minute longer than is necessary." Only a few days before Mr. Jackson came, I found her one afternoon darning a black camel's hair dress she was going to give Effie (her maid). She said she was proud of doing it so nice, and showed me how to set the needle so that the first back stitch would not show. She always had flowers from the garden of the house --nasturtiums or white or yellow daisies, or wall flowers on the little tray with feet that stood on her bed. She arranged them over very often after the landlady had brought them up -- and she was always pleased when I recognised [sic… ?] her touch especially. She was fond of my music when she was here before and when she moved to the house in Taylor St., where there was a piano she said -- "When I am stronger you must often play for me " -- but she never was strong enough even the few times when I asked her afterwards. She saw one or two gentlemen now and then in regard to her going camping, and liked them to come to talk to her, and Mr. Kinney used to go a good deal and she always surprised the doctor. Mrs. Apponyi appealed to her sympathy and she was so kind and helped her so much, but she could not see her often. -- "I don't quite know why, but she tires me -- poor little woman!" she said. She just lay there patiently and brightly all day -- writing a little reading a little, -- enduring much. Oh if she were only there now!
Yours Sincerely
Sara Thibault
San Francisco -- Aug. 30, 1885.
My dear Miss Woolsey:-
My mother not being at all well, I insist that you will allow me to act as her amanuensis, and to express our thanks for your kind and thankful letter of August 16. I feel as though we knew you well for besides knowing "Susan Coolidge" we have so often heard our dear departed friend speak of Miss Woolsey. To think that dear Mrs. Jackson wrote of us to you! We only knew Mrs. Jackson personally four months, but during that time we grew to love her as one of our own, and she was happy with us; she often said "No place in the U.S. would suit me so well as this." All that love and money could do to restore her to health was done, -- not a stone was left unturned, but as we all know now, it was of no avail -- for her trouble was fatal.
Mama had fears of a cancer -- although there seemed nothing to justify them -- no pain, nothing disagreeable, nothing but the continual refusal of the stomach to retain food; it finally became so that all she could take must be frozen; for some time it was frozen cream, then nothing but liquid food, then the stomach positively refused. Dr. Boericke knew the end was near and he telegraphed for Mr. Jackson, -- to satisfy himself with her physician's treatment he summoned one of our most eminent doctors who approved of all Dr. Boericke had done. He told Mrs. Jackson that she had only a few days to live, -- she looked him straight in the eye and said "I know it." From that time on she made final preparations and on Saturday August 8th she bade us all "Good bye" -- that night the Dr. administered morphine and from that time until Aug. 12, she was in deep sleep only two or three times becoming conscious. It was her wish that the opium should be given her and we believe that she made the Dr. promise faithfully that he would not leave her until her eyes closed in death. We do not think that the physicians were positive of there being a cancer in the stomach until the Sunday previous to her death; during the day she vomited something perfectly black which resembled coffee-grounds, and also a substance which looked like the small roots of a tree -- which was probably a small cancer or part of one. Mrs. Jackson then turned and said, "There now see what I have been carrying -- Dr., What does it mean?" Immediately after she became unconscious again. We believe that then, and only then did she realize what her trouble was; and if so it was a blessing for she often said, that she thought anyone would be perfectly justified in taking their own life if they had a cancer.
The services were conducted very quietly according to her wish and her husband's. Mr. Jackson placed a few red clover blossoms in the casket. It was Mrs. Jackson's wish that after death, no strange hands should touch her and my mother performed the last duties of washing and preparing her for her last resting place. She did it because she loved her. In her casket she grew young again; every wrinkle left the face, the broad forehead looked so noble. Mamma wishes me to say that she never witnessed a more beautiful deathbed than Mrs. Jackson's. Being thrown together as we had been for four months we had grown so attached to her that it will be long before we will realize that we will never see her again. I can stand in the room in which she died and picture her lying in her bed, dressed in a beautiful nightgown with a pretty bed sack of either light blue or cream color. With books and letters around her and that beautiful and wonderful smile lighting up her whole face. She was happy with us during her last days. Day by day she gave up earthly care and trouble and prepared to meet her Maker. It has been a lesson for us all to learn from and I trust whenever time comes that our heavenly Father will give us strength to meet it as bravely as did Helen Hunt Jackson.
Thanking you again for kindly remembering us -Believe me
Sincerely Yours,
Helena I. Chevers.
[letter continues on back of folded sheet, earlier dated Aug. 30]
1317 Hyde St. San Francisco
14 August 1885.
My dear Mrs. Johnson:
Mrs. Jackson as you know died on Wednesday (the 12) and she was taken out to the cemetery here this morning to wait until Mr. Jackson comes to take her East in a month from now. All the time she has been here, although too weak to sit up she has been bright and cheerful and until three weeks ago, able to throw off any physical depression whenever I saw her - which has been nearly every day for five months. She dreaded seeing strangers and an expression of wariness would come when some one was announced whom she had to send away. But her clear brain and warm heart never failed for one instance till she became unconscious. We all thought the great nervous prostration would account for every unfortunate symptom - the growing weakness, steadily loss of flesh, inability to eat, the constant nausea - for in spite of these she looked still well, and full of life - until the time I mention -- the end of July. Then the Dr. told me he was becoming more and more assured that there was disease and fatal disease, and just then I, too, saw a great and rapid change. Since then she has been sinking steadily and after Mr. Jackson's arrival on the 2nd, she could no longer keep up her old unflinching spirit. On Saturday night she was given morphine to allay the nausea which had become unbearable, and after that, although she was conscious for a few minutes from time to time she barely spoke. She passed away so peacefully at ten minutes past four in the afternoon. She left with Mr. Jackson, with her maid and with me most minute instructions as to the disposal of all her things here. She seemed to remember every one -- to think of everything except herself. But we tried to do what she would like and everything was of the quietest and simplest. We dressed her in a soft white cashmere gown trimmed with lace frills around the throat and down the front, and she looked so sweet and rested. Mr. Jackson placed a few clover blossoms on her breast. of course there were flowers without end - wreaths and crosses which she never cared for but she would have cared for the feeling that sent them. Mr. Jackson goes back to Colorado Springs tomorrow. Pray excuse this what I fear must be unsatisfactory letter, but I am anxious to send it as soon as possible. I am very tired, having been all day packing and burning papers. Believe Me
Yours Sincerely
Sara Thibault.
The following is an extract from Mrs. Runkle's letter.
"I was away all thru Helen's mortal illness, and did not know of her failing till I learned of her death; I say "her death" because that is the common phrase. But I no more think of her as dead than of myself or of the sun in heaven I do not even feel that she has passed beyond our vision, she was so alive, she is so alive that she has lost no part or less among us - except that which I would not have her share - the fading, failing relinquishing which must have come to her in a few years more. She was so absolute a queen by divine right of genius and charm that it is fitting that she should lay down her scepter at the zenith of her power. She could not have borne to lose it thro' feebleness and incapacity. It must have gone hard with her to feel her fascination fade, and see her kingdom divided. This triumphant passing seems to me a part of her regal heritage and I cannot be sad. Don't fret, Mrs. Johnson, that she is taken from us. It seems to me the compensation of what we call death, that our dead are so intensely alive. Henceforth there are no spaces of land or sea between, no separations of alien cares and interests. All that belongs to you is yours forever and nothing goes but the sound of voice and touch of hand. I know, alas, how much goes with that, but so much more remains."
3. Letter from Sara Thibault to Miss Banfield, dated at end: 12 October 1885. Notation at top of letter: Ans'd Oct. 22/85
1317 Hyde Street
My dear Miss Banfield
Your letter of the 5th is just come, and I now know why you have not written.
The first letter I wrote on the evening of the 15 August was to you and it was a very long one - but I see from yours that I addressed it wrongly. Mr. Jackson sent me the address just before he left town and I read Walborn Mass - and so addressed it.
Do you think that by sending to the Dead Letter Office, you could get it? If so, you will know all I could there tell you, or if there is anything you still wish to hear may ask and I shall answer every question.
I spoke to you about the packing of the trunks to explain why they were not better done - and as far as I was there able I gave you all details.
You and your mother and Miss Woolsey thank me too much for the little I was able to do for the lovely woman whom it was a blessed privilege to know and care for. She did infinitely more for me, in her books and in her beautiful life, and it is my great joy to think of her last words to me, while it will be an endless regret that I did not half what I might perhaps have done.
The realisation that she was to leave us came so short a time before the end - and always before that, as I wrote Miss Woolsey, I was afraid of tiring her by staying more or doing more for her.
I have been expecting and hoping that Mr. Jackson would be here again - as he intended coming when I last saw him. But I suppose his plans were altered.
Please accept my gratefulness for the kind words you have given me for what had never yet come to you - and with the echo of your wish that we may one day meet and become friends.
Believe me yours very sincerely
Sara Thibault
12 October 1885.
Helen Hunt Jackson
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