Reunited

Isn't love grand? Even in death, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his beloved wife could not remain apart. At last, the Associated Press reports, Nathaniel and Sophia are together again.

The author of The Scarlet Letter was a resident of Concord, Massachusetts, a descendant of fine stock, and rumored to have sprung from the same family that gave us the judge who really got the Salem Witch Trials up to speed. He was the father of three surviving children, a friend to President Franklin Pierce, and a very prolific writer, but one does not live forever and Mr. Hawthorne left this world back in 1864. Mrs. Hawthorne took the kids and made for England, to mourn at a distance.

As luck would have it, she lived only another six years and then she, too, died. No one thought to embalm her body and ship it back to Concord, so she was planted in foreign soil. One of her daughters also died in England, making two in the family plot in Kensal Green cemetery in London.

Another daughter, Rose Hawthorne, must not have fallen in love with England, because she came back to the USA and founded a religious order, a branch of the Dominicans. From that time, the Dominican Sisters paid to maintain the grave site in England, but money is tight for the clergy these days. The grave needed repairs, perhaps the monument was crumbling, but the good sisters could not keep it up anymore. What to do? Dig them up, of course, and send them home to Nathaniel.

The Hawthornes who are alive today are pleased that their ancestors are back home, all together in one place like husband and wife should be. Great-great-granddaughter Alison Hawthorne Deming, a professor of creative writing, was certainly over the moon over the whole thing, the reuniting and bringing together. And so, with great pomp and an antique hearse, what little was left of Sophia and daughter Una were planted in Concord's cemetery. Historian Philip McFarland, no doubt wiping a tear from his eye, noted that Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne were passionately in love, united in "...one of the premier marriages in American literature."

Rest in peace, Nathaniel and Sophia. Hope that you're not turning over in the grave, if you find the new arrangements not to your liking.