IF EVER TWO WERE ONE

I haven’t mentioned it before but I work as a bookseller which has
led me to some books that I’ve found interesting and helpful in my
genealogy pursuits. I’ll mention some of those in the future but
even though it’s a day late I thought I’d talk about the one that fits
in with St Valentine’s Day.



I was waiting on a customer who was looking for a book for her 70
year old aunt. The woman picked up a book from the new release
large size paperback table and asked me if I knew anything about
it. The title was "If Ever Two Were One: A Diary of Love Eternal "
by Brian Sullivan, the story of the romance between Francis
Ellingwood Abbot and Katharine Loring told from Abbot’s journal
and letters.



This piqued my curiosity. I have ancestors named Ellingwood and
Abbot and a quick glance at the back cover told me this Abbot
was from Beverly where my ancestors lived. So I googled him and
while he's not a direct ancestor he is in fact a cousin. Our common
ancestor was Ralph Ellingwood of early Salem, Ma. but where my
line descends from Ralph Jr., Frank E. Abbot's descends from
another son.



The same is true of our Abbot ancestries descending from siblings
although there are several other incidents of relationship through
marriages of brothers or sisters into both lines.



Seems Frank was a Harvard man, a Unitarian minister, and knew
Emerson and others. He was one of the early American supporters
of Darwinism which led to his break from Unitarianism and a very
controversial reputation for most of the latter part of his life. In
his days as a Harvard divinity student he roomed at the home of
Henry David Thoreau’s mother and he spoke with Ralph Waldo
Emerson on several occasions.



Mr Sullivan’s book details Abbot's romance and marriage of over
forty years with Katharine Loring and the subsequent ten years
after her death, ending with his suicide on her grave in 1903.



It’s fascinating to see the Victorian romantic ideal mindset in the
flowery style of writing popular in those times. But I must confess
that Frank seems to me a bit overly intense in his devotion to his
Katharine.I suspect that when they married their respective
families felt some relief that the two young people were “settled”.



Harvard Magazine of July-August 2002 has a few examples of
entries from Francis Ellingwood Abbot’s journal here.