Davy’s Residence, 44 Beacon Street. Memorial portrait. Two subjects. Special arrangements. Payment $50. $50 in 1895 was an extraordinary sum, roughly $1,800 in modern currency, far more than a typical memorial photograph would cost. Helen searched for more information about Thomas Blackwell and found his personal diary which had been donated to the society in 1957 by his granddaughter.
She requested the diary from storage and when it arrived she carefully turned the fragile pages to June 1895. The entry for June 7th 1895 was longer than most. received urgent summons to the Davy’s household on Beacon Hill. The situation there is among the most disturbing I have encountered in 20 years of memorial photography. The younger daughter, Rose, died of scarlet fever 4 days ago.
The older daughter, Lily, has also contracted the disease and will not survive long, according to the family physician. But the true horror is this. Lily has refused to leave her deceased sister’s side. She sleeps beside the body. She holds the dead child’s hand. She speaks to her as if she were alive. The mother is too overcome with grief to intervene.
The father is weak from his own illness. They sent for me because Lily requested it. The child wants a photograph of herself with her sister so mama can remember us together. I tried to explain that we could create a traditional memorial portrait, but Lily became hysterical. She demanded the photograph show both of them alive and together.
She made me promise to pose them in a way that would hide the fact that Rose was deceased. I am deeply uncomfortable with this deception, [clears throat] but the child is dying and her parents are too broken to refuse her anything. I agreed. God forgive me. I agreed. I photographed the two girls in the garden, positioned carefully so that Rose’s condition would not be obvious.
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