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Sometimes it’s the little things that pack a wallop.
P.S. Thank you for the candy. Don’t send any more.
When researching my historical biographical novel, Till Taught by Pain, I was frustrated by how little my female protagonist, Caroline Hampton Halsted, had left behind in her own words. The South Caroliniana Library Archives holds a few letters that Caroline had written to her aunt and a few to her husband, Dr. William Stewart Halsted, my male protagonist. The letters are newsy, typical for the type of correspondence from the era, before telephones and convenient transportation diminished the importance of letter writing. They are full of interesting everyday-life details, very useful for a novelist. However, even though Caroline and William often spent weeks apart, typically while she was at their summer home in Cashiers, N.C., before he could get away from work and join her, the surviving letters don’t read like love letters. They are pragmatic rather than emotional. This gave me a look at one side of her personality.
What caught my eye was the P.S. at the end of one. He sent her candy. Unrequested. He missed her! And she teased him in a way that feels very modern. He knows she has a sweet tooth and indulges her. She is watching her waistline and protests. But I’ll bet she enjoyed the candy. And his thoughtfulness. This gave me a glimpse of another side of her personality and their relationship. They could be playful.
Little things like this are what help a biographical novelist to imagine and portray a real historical figure in a flesh-and-blood way.
Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbia, S.C., the site of the Hampton family burial plots. I found Caroline’s grave among the other Hamptons. (Previously, I had visited William’s gravesite in the Halsted family plot in Brooklyn, NY.) I’ve been asked, and I wondered also, why they hadn’t been buried side by side. But seeing Caroline’s grave, surrounded by other Hamptons, along with other names that I had become familiar with, made me realize something else. Or, more accurately, confirmed for me something else. Caroline was independent. Strong-minded. And bold.
The gravestones in the Hampton family plot underscore the interconnectedness of elite 19th century South Carolina families. (To some extent, the same is true of elite New York families of the time.) However, unlike her siblings, who married within the fold, Caroline left the South and married a Yankee. (He left NY and married a Southern belle. They both moved away from family to settle in Baltimore.) To be buried with generations of family, which must have seemed natural at the time, they had to be buried apart.
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