Biography
Main Contents
.Sarah Orne Jewett's Death
Notices, Obituaries, etc.In Annie Fields (2002), Rita Gollin recounts Annie Fields's reactions to Sarah Orne Jewett's final weeks. On February 4, 1909, Fields wrote: "My dear S. O. J. was stricken down early Sunday morning a small blood vessel giving way in the brain." Gollin continues, "A month later, Sarah was 'still in a low state though reviving a little from time to time.' Though she could speak a bit and even joke with the nurses, she was virtually helpless. Then on 21 April, 'she was carried to her South Berwick home from her Charles Street home. We did not speak again together after that morning. She needed all her steadiness and so did I. She understood and wrote me afterward that she loved it so.' The 'it' was their silent farewell. 'I could not speak for crying,' Sarah wrote from South Berwick the next morning...." For the last two months of her life, Jewett wrote regular notes in barely readable handwriting. "And she copied into her diary what may have been the last of them: 'Goodbye darling with my heart's love your Pinny" (309).
SARAH JEWETT IS CALLED BY DEATH
Noted New England Author Succumbs to Paralysis in Room Where Born.South Berwick, Me., June 24. – In the room where she was born, and where she did much of her literary work, Miss Sarah Orne Jewett died tonight, after an illness of several months from paralysis. She had been at the Jewett homestead since last March, when physicians in Boston told her that her case was hopeless. Her illness, however, did not assume a critical form until Monday and she became confined to her room. Previous to that her sister, Miss May [Mary] R. Jewett, and a corps of nurses moved her in a wheeled chair about the house.
Miss Jewett was stricken at the home of her friend, Mrs. James T. Fields, 148 Charles street, Boston. Although practically helpless her mind remained clear. After being brought here in a special car and installed in the house of her childhood the famous author seemed to improve for a few days. She recalled incidents in the lives of her father and mother and was also reminiscent of her childhood.
Miss Jewett was born in South Berwick, Me., Sept. 3, 1849, in one of the most beautiful houses in New England.
Boston Journal, June 25, 1909, p. 1
Available courtesy of the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection.
Funeral of Miss Jewett Tomorrow
South Berwick, Me., June 25 – The funeral of Sarah Orne Jewett, the author, whose death occurred last evening at her summer home here, will take place, Sunday afternoon at 3 o’clock at the Congregational Church. The service will be conducted by the Rev. George Lewis, D. D., who has been pastor of the church for thirty-five years. The bearers will be Charles C. Hobbs, William Thompson, two of the oldest members of the church, William A. H. Goodwin and John B. Whitehead.
Note
This newspaper notice is available courtesy of the University of New England Maine Women Writers Collection. Its source is unknown; assistance identifying the source is welcome.
SARAH ORNE JEWETT,
NOTED WRITER, DEAD
New York Times, 15 June 1909, p. 9.
Admired for Her Stories of New England Rural Life
– Praised by Lowell.
DEATH FOLLOWED PARALYSIS
Sixty Years Old, Most of Her Life Had
Been Spent Between Her Native
Maine and BostonSOUTH BERWICK, Me., June 24. – An illness lasting many months ended to-night in the death of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, Litt. D., author of many books and regarded as one of the foremost women writers of America. Since last March Miss Jewett had been at her old home here, where for many years she had been accustomed to pass her Summers, and it was in the old home that her death occurred at 6:40 this evening.
It was while living in Boston early in the present year, at the residence of her friend, Mrs. James T. Fields, widow of a famous Boston publisher, and herself an author of various books, that Miss Jewett had an attack of apoplexy which caused paralysis on one side of her body, and, although her mind remained clear, she became nearly helpless physically.
It is believed that another attack of the brain hemorrhage from which she first suffered was the immediate cause of death.
The house where Miss Jewett was born, on Sept. 3, 1849, has been in the possession of the Jewett family since 1740.* Miss Jewett was the daughter of Dr. Theodore H. and Caroline F. (Perry) Jewett.
Miss Jewett was best known to the literary world through her stories of New England country life. These were published both in book form and in the magazines.
Her father was a country physician.
Delicate health in childhood compelled Miss Jewett to spend most of her time in the open air. She therefore accompanied her father every day on his rounds among his patients. During these trips she stored up material which later found its way into print. Afterward, gaining somewhat in strength, Miss Jewett attended the academy in her native village.
Her career as an author began when she was quite young. While she was at the Berwick Academy, she was only seventeen then, several short stories under her name appeared in “Our Young Folks,” and the Riverside Magazine.* She ventured to send a story to the Atlantic Monthly when she was nineteen years of age, and since then hardly a year has passed without a volume from her.
Although nearly all of her life was spent between the house in which she was born in Maine and at the home of Mrs. James T. Fields, these places were not the only ones with which Miss Jewett was acquainted. She traveled throughout this country and made several trips abroad.
Among Miss Jewett’s principal writings were “Deephaven,” in 1877; “Old Friends and New,” published in 1880; “Country Byways,” which was published in the following year; “A Country Doctor,” in 1884; a series of stories of the nations, which was published in 1887; “Tales of New England,” in 1888, and “The Country of the Pointed Firs,” published in 1897. Other stories were “A Marsh Island,” “The Story of the Normans,” her last book being “The Tory Lover,” published in 1901. Miss Jewett was a contributor besides, to many magazines. In 1901 she received the degree of Doctor of Letters from Bowdoin College.
Editor's Notes
The Jewett House
Stories vary from the observable facts about when the Jewett family came into possession of what is now known as the Jewett House in South Berwick.
Though this is difficult to determine with exactness, it appears that the ownership of the land on which the house and its outbuildings stood became unclear when heirs of John Haggens died intestate between 1822 and 1827. The estates were settled by 1830, and it seems that Nancy Haggens became the main owner of the Jewett house and lands.
Paula Blanchard states that Theodore F. Jewett (Sarah’s grandfather) moved into the Jewett house with his second wife, Olive Walker, soon after their marriage in 1821. Though Blanchard states that T. F. Jewett bought the house at that time, in fact the purchase was not completed until 1839, and SPNEA research suggests that Theodore Furber Jewett rented the property from John Haggens's estate at first. The house did not change hands legally (by deed) until 1839. On May 27, 1839, Thomas Jewett (Sarah’s uncle) purchased from Nancy Haggens and the estate of John Haggens several parcels of property (York Deeds 164:267). On the same day, Thomas sold the "mansion house" and lot to his brother, Theodore (York Deeds 164:269).Jewett’s literary beginnings
Jewett’s first two published works appeared in The Flag of the Union and Our Young Folks, when she was 18. Her third publication, “Mr. Bruce,” a short story, appeared in Atlantic Monthly when she was 19.
Jewett’s works -- corrections
Old Friends and New - 1879
Country By-Ways - 1881
Tales of New England - 1890
The Country of the Pointed Firs - 1896
There was no “series of stories of the nations,” but in 1887, Jewett published The Story of the Normans, a volume in a series of “stories of the nations” school texts.
from “Boston Gossip of Latest Books”
New York Times, 3 July 1909.
Book Review, p. 421.
The lamented death of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett takes away from earth a soul as sweet, a heart as gentle as ever guided a pen. She drew her own portrait in her gentlewomen, young and old, and should her biography be written she can best be described in her own phrases. So far as human vision could discern, she attained her own idea in grace, courtesy, and charity. When the Atlantic was giving those dinners to which ladies were admitted, it was amusing to hear men, after being sufficiently voluble in praise of others, hesitate when they came to her name, and to see how many of them were satisfied with crying, “ But Miss Jewett!” with an ecstatic expression. No woman dissented. She charmed all. Her epitaph should be “How good! how kind! and she is gone!” She had not been quite well since the accident of which there was a rumor some years ago, but illness and pain were borne with dignified sweetness which left no unlovely memory in any mind, and will never be forgotten by those to whom glimpses of it were granted.