60. CPTH, 1111.
61. HC interview with Ruth Fainlight, May 2016, London.
62. SP to AP, 11 Feb. 1960. L2, 414.
63. W. B. Yeats, Collected Poems, Richard Finneran, ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 204–205.
1. THE BEEKEEPER’S DAUGHTER
1. Eda Sagarra, A Social History of Germany 1648–1914 (Piscataway, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 313–18.
2. SP to Hans-Joachim Neupert, 30 May 1950. L1, 163.
3. Ibid., 10 Oct. 1949. L1, 153.
4. Ibid., 30 May 1950. L1, 163.
5. J, 453–54.
6. J, 166; 209; 215; 306; 319; 407; 475.
7. J, 641.
8. HC interview with Perry Norton, Oct. 2012, Auburndale, Mass.
9. One family member claimed that it derived from “von Plath,” and, before that, the French “Platheau.” Letter from June Helle to Theodore Plath’s great-niece Martha Mae Gullickson, 30 Mar. 1984, posted in the Helle family public member page, http://www.ancestry.com. All of the ship passenger registers I consulted listed the Plath family as “Plath.”
10. HC conversation with Anita Helle, 27 Oct. 2012, Bloomington, Ind. Helle is Otto Plath’s great-niece.
11. On the Federal Census Record for Berkeley, California, 1920, Otto lists Polish as his mother tongue; on the 1930 Federal Census Record for Boston, Massachusetts, he lists German.
12. “Community of Budsin, Kreis Kolmar,” http://www.birchy.com. This is a genealogy website for those looking for Posen ancestors.
13. Mathilde (b. 1853–54), Emilie (b. 1858), Augusta (b. 1859), Emil (b. 1860), and Mary (b. 186?). Two more children, whose names and births are unrecorded, probably died young.
14. June Helle to Martha Mae Gullickson, 30 Mar. 1984.
15. Johann emigrated on the Fulda from Bremen, Germany, in 1885, and Caroline on the Gellert, from Hamburg, Germany, in 1890. Both arrived in New York. John accompanied a seventy-eight-year-old woman, Mrs. J. Plath.
16. June Helle to Martha Mae Gullickson, 30 Mar. 1984.
17. In the 1910 Federal Census Record for Lincoln, Wisconsin, both John and Caroline answered no to questions regarding their literacy and ability to speak English.
18. Marjorie Shong (Fall Creek town clerk) to Harriet Rosenstein, 22 Feb. 1977. 3.6, MSS 1489, Emory.
19. June Helle to Martha Mae Gullickson, 30 Mar. 1984.
20. Ernestine’s parents were Michael Kottke and Anna Christina Witt. Marriage database, “The Poznan Project,” http://www.poznan-project.psnc.pl.
21. LH, 13.
22. This is according to the children’s ages as listed on the Lake Ontario passenger list in December 1901.
23. June Helle to Martha Mae Gullickson, 30 Mar. 1984.
24. The ship’s passenger log lists Ernestine’s final destination as “Husband, Emil Plath, Blacksmith, Maza, N.D.” Ernestine’s occupation is listed as “wife.” Emil, however, was her husband’s brother. Perhaps Ernestine felt that she needed to list a more established member of the Plath family as her contact, since Theodore may still have been unemployed at this point.
25. Otto lists his father’s address on his 1903 high school registration card as Maza, North Dakota.
26. AP, Biographical Jottings About Sylvia Plath (“Illness”). 30.57, SPC, Smith.
27. AP to Elizabeth Compton Sigmund, 18 May 1976. Add MS 88612, BL.
28. Anita Helle, “ ‘Family Matters’: An Afterword on the Biography of Sylvia Plath,” Northwest Review 26 (1988): 148–60. 155.
29. AP, Biographical Jottings About Sylvia Plath (“Illness”). 30.57, SPC, Smith.
30. Oregon State Hospital, Salem, Oregon, medical and court commitment records for Ernestine Plath, b. 1853, d. 28 Sept. 1919. The journalist Amy Standen discovered that Ernestine Plath was one of several thousand former patients at the hospital whose cremains were unclaimed in 2018. Ernestine’s records are publicly available at the Oregon State Archives.
31. Helle, “ ‘Family Matters,’ ” 155–56.
32. HC conversation with Anita Helle, 27 Oct. 2012, Bloomington, Ind.
33. LH, 9. He arrived in America on the Auguste Victoria in Aug. 1900.
34. Paul Eggert to Harriet Rosenstein, 24 Jan. 1975. 3.4, MSS 1489, Emory.
35. Northwestern College Minutes, 12 May–21 Sept. 1905; 21 Sept. 1905.
36. There were no biology courses offered during Otto’s time at the college, only chemistry and physics.
37. Course catalog, College of Northwestern University, 1905–1906.
38. LH, 9.
39. Ibid.
40. FBI File on Otto E. Plath, by Armin Nix, #5006 B, 22 Oct. 1918; Carl Lawrenz (President, Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary) to Harriet Rosenstein, 15 Aug. 1974. 3.4, MSS 1489, Emory.
41. LH, 10.
42. BJ, 166.
43. Aurelia Plath told this to Richard Larschan. HC interview with Richard Larschan, May 2017, Manhattan. Membership records for the organization from the 1920s and ’30s no longer exist.
44. Max Gaebler, “Sylvia Plath Remembered,” Wisconsin Academy Review 46.2 (Spring 2000): 28–32.
45. 1912 University of Washington Yearbook, 176.
46. Otto Plath, “Washington Irving’s Einfluss auf Wilhelm Hauff: Eine Quellenstudie.” Thesis Submitted for MA in Literature Degree, University of Washington, 1912.
47. In 1929, Otto told Aurelia that he and Lydia only lived together for one year after marrying. Otto’s draft registration card, which he filled out on 12 Sept. 1918, while living in Berkeley, California, helps corroborate this statement; he lists his closest living relative as Mrs. Otto Emil Plath, Deaconess Hospital (where she worked as a nurse), in Chicago.
48. FBI File on Otto E. Plath, by Armin Nix, #5006 B, 22 Oct. 1918.
49. “Comings and Goings,” Reno Evening Gazette (16 Sept. 1914), 8.
50. FBI File on Otto E. Plath, by Armin Nix, #5006 B, 22 Oct. 1918.
51. “German Profs. to Leave U. for War,” Oakland Tribune (4 Aug. 1914), 16.
52. Marjorie Shong (Fall Creek town clerk) to Harriet Rosenstein, 22 Feb. 1977. 3.6, MSS 1489, Emory.
53. 1920 Federal Census, Berkeley, Calif.
54. Theodore Plath (listed as Theodore Platt) was buried in 1st Addition, Block 265, Lot 1, of the Mountain View Cemetery in Oregon City, Oregon.
55. FBI File on Otto E. Plath, by Armin Nix, #5006 B, 10 Oct. 1918.
56. Ibid., 25 Oct. 1918.
57. Ibid., 22 Oct. 1918. All following quotes from the FBI file are from this date.
58. Otto Emil Plath, Declaration of Intention for US Citizenship, No. 469, 22 June 1921.
59. Otto Emil Plath, Certificate of Naturalization, #2307371, 12 Apr. 1926.
60. Full text of this speech is available at the American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65400.
61. George Fulton to Edward Butscher, 20 Nov. 1972. 1.22, EBC, Smith.
62. Thomas Clohesy to AP, 4 Sept. 1966. 29.9, SPC, Smith.
63. AP to Helen Vendler, 5 Jan. 1976. 29.47, SPC, Smith.
64. Andrew Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (New York: Scribner, 2013), 31.
65. HC interview with Richard Larschan, May 2017, Manhattan.
66. Dr. W. M. Wheeler dominated the biology department at the time.
67. Albert Mangelsdorf to Harriet Rosenstein, 22 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
68. HM, 7. Hinchcliffe interviewed these men during the 1970s while researching a biography of Plath, which she never published. A copy of the unfinished manuscript is in the Frances McCullough Papers, University of Maryland, and the Al Alvarez Papers, BL.
69. Ibid.
70. HM, 8.
71. HM,
11.
72. Laurence H. Snyder to Harriet Rosenstein, 25 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
73. HM, 2.
74. HM, 9–10.
75. Video footage of Aurelia Plath, Nov. 1986, in Poets of New England: Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Monstrous Mother. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, AIMS Video Services, 2001. Courtesy of Richard Larschan.
76. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Leland H. Taylor, 1974–75. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
77. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Frank L. Carpenter, 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
78. George Salt to Harriet Rosenstein, 8 Sept. 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
79. Leland Taylor to Harriet Rosenstein, 23 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory. The other characteristics listed were noted often in interviews and letters from Otto’s Bussey housemates. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
80. Philip J. Darlington to Harriet Rosenstein, 14 Aug. 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
81. Leland Taylor to Harriet Rosenstein, 3 Aug. 1974; Clyde Keeler to Harriet Rosenstein, 22 July 1974; George Salt to Harriet Rosenstein, 8 Sept. 1974; W. Ralph Singleton to Harriet Rosenstein, 25 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
82. Leland Taylor to Harriet Rosenstein, 22 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
83. W. Ralph Singleton to Harriet Rosenstein, 25 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
84. Clyde Keeler to Harriet Rosenstein, 1 Aug. 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
85. Laurence H. Snyder to Harriet Rosenstein, 25 July 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
86. Albert Edward Wiggam, “Let’s Explore Your Mind,” San Antonio Express (20 July 1934), 7; “Observations: Bee Sting Poison,” Republican Courier (9 Apr. 1934), 4.
87. George Fulton to Edward Butscher, 20 Nov. 1972. 1.22, EBC, Smith.
88. Ibid.
89. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Norman Bailey, 1975. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
90. Otto E. Plath, Bumblebees and Their Ways (New York: Macmillan, 1934), 1–2.
91. HM, 34.
92. O. E. Plath, Bumblebees, 112.
93. Edward Butscher, Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), 3; 10.
94. LH, 32.
95. HC interview with Betsy Powley Wallingford, Feb. 2013, Sudbury, Mass.
96. HC phone interview with Phil McCurdy, 6 Dec. 2014; HC interviews with Rosenberg and Klein.
97. HC interview with Perry Norton, Oct. 2012, Auburndale, Mass.
98. WP to Edward Butscher, 31 Aug. 1975. 4.120, EBC, Smith.
99. 1901 Census Record, Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, England.
100. Vancouver Ship Passenger List (sailing from Naples, Italy, on 18 May, arriving in Boston on 1 June 1902).
101. The sisters sailed to New York on the Pennsylvania.
102. Massachusetts state naturalization papers for Francis Schober, Certificate #103097. His address is listed as 95 Gainsboro Street, Boston, in 1909.
103. None of Plath’s Grünwald relatives were listed as “Hebrew” on any of the ships’ passenger lists or other official documents.
104. SP, “New Poems,” typed 13 Dec. 1962 for Douglas Cleverdon. 6.16, SPC, Smith.
105. Harriet Rosenstein interview with AP, 1970. 3.3, MSS 1489, Emory.
106. LH, 4.
107. In the 1910, 1920, and 1930 Federal Census Reports for Boston and Winthrop, Aurelia Greenwood Schober always lists her occupation as housewife, while Frank Schober lists his as “waiter,” “head waiter,” or “manager” of hotels. He makes no mention in the census reports of his accounting, though Aurelia states that he worked as an accountant before the late 1930s in her introduction to Letters Home.
108. LH, 3–4.
109. LH, 5.
110. Linda Heller, “Aurelia Plath: A Lasting Commitment,” Bostonia, the Boston University Alumnae Magazine (Spring 1976): 36.
111. AP to Frieda Hughes, Sept. 1974, Cruickshank Archive. Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song, 20.
112. LH, 5.
113. “Miss Schober to Give B.U. Class Valedictory.” Unidentified newspaper clipping. 30.50, SPC, Smith.
114. AP, “Chronology.” 30.55, SPC, Smith.
115. LH, 6–8.
116. LH, 10.
117. Ibid.
118. See Claudia Goldin, “Marriage Bars: Discrimination Against Married Women Workers, 1920’s to 1950’s.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper Series. Working Paper No. 2747. October 1988, http://www.nber.org/papers/w2747, p. 5.
119. LH, 13.
120. Ruth Freeman Geissler to HC, 30 Nov. 2012.
121. LH, 6.
122. AP to Frieda Hughes, 21 Apr. 1978. Cruickshank Archive. Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song, 21.
123. LH, 13.
124. LH, 12–13.
125. Dr. Ruth Beuscher interview with AP, 15 Sept. 1953. 3.10, MSS 1489, Emory.
126. Clyde Keeler to Harriet Rosenstein, 1 Aug. 1974. 3.7, MSS 1489, Emory.
127. HC phone interview with Jillian Becker, 18 Apr. 2017.
128. 8.2, Lilly.
2. DO NOT MOURN
1. T. H. Watkins, The Great Depression: America in the 1930s (Boston and New York: Little, Brown, 1993), 13.
2. “There probably had never been so many eruptions of public unrest in such a short period of time over so wide a spectrum of geography and population in the nation’s history as those that punctuated the months between the winter of 1930 and the winter of 1933…all of them dutifully and sometimes luridly chronicled in the daily press.” Ibid., 81.
3. Ibid., 56.
4. Ibid.
5. LH, 10.
6. LH, 12.
7. She was delivered by Drs. J. J. Abrams and Edwin Smith. AP, “Chronology.” 30.55, SPC, Smith.
8. AP to Judith Kroll, 1 Dec. 1978. 29.26, SPC, Smith.
9. Otto and Aurelia, with their literary backgrounds, probably also had had Shakespeare in mind when they chose the name Sylvia, which features prominently in Two Gentlemen of Verona: “Then to Silvia let us sing, / That Silvia is excelling; / She excels each mortal thing / Upon the dull earth dwelling. / To her let us garlands bring.” This passage was later made into a popular song, “Who Is Silvia?” by Franz Schubert, which Otto and Aurelia would have known.
10. Helen Vendler later wrote a moving letter to Aurelia about how her own struggles as a female academic had mirrored Plath’s. Helen Vendler to AP, 24 Nov. 1975. 29.47, SPC, Smith.
11. LH, 37.
12. AP, draft introduction, LH. 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. 14.4, Lilly.
17. Plath slept with it every night, and by 1935 all that was left of the toy were the ears. AP, Baby Book, 14.4, Lilly.
18. Ibid.
19. LH, 13.
20. JP, 119–23.
21. LH, 16.
22. Video footage of Aurelia Plath, Nov. 1986, in Poets of New England: Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Monstrous Mother. University of Massachusetts, Amherst, AIMS Video Services, 2001. Courtesy of Richard Larschan.
23. LH, 16.
24. Harriet Rosenstein interview with Perry and Shirley Norton, 1971–74. 2.27, MSS 1489, Emory.
25. Video, Poets of New England: Sylvia Plath and the Myth of the Monstrous Mother.
26. AP, “Chronology.” 30.55, SPC, Smith.
27. AP, draft introduction, LH (“Otto E. Plath”). 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
28. Ibid.
29. HM, 27.
30. She and Otto put down $1,000 toward the $10,000 three-bedroom, seven-room, 1,940-square-foot house. AP, “Chronology.” 30.55, SPC, Smith.
31. SP, “Ocean 1212-W.” JP, 119.
32. AP, “Chronology.” 30
.55, SPC, Smith.
33. LH, 18.
34. SP, high school scrapbook. 10.O3, Lilly.
35. JP, 253; 255.
36. JP, 117; 121–22.
37. Ruth Freeman Geissler email to Peter K. Steinberg, 29 Jan. 2015 and 27 Oct. 2017. Shared with Geissler’s permission.
38. AP, draft introduction, LH. 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
39. JP, 124.
40. AP, draft introduction, LH. 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
41. Ibid.
42. LH, 5.
43. JP, 118.
44. SP, “Autograph transcript of 40 juvenile poems.” 127550, LHMS, Morgan.
45. SP, high school scrapbook. 10.O3, Lilly.
46. See Rosenstein’s Freeman and Sterling files, MSS 1489, Emory.
47. Max D. Gaebler, “Sylvia Plath Remembered,” delivered to the Madison Literary Club on 14 Mar. 1983. 2.22, Houghton Mifflin Collection, Smith.
48. LH, 19–22.
49. LH, 18.
50. Ibid.
51. AP, draft introduction, LH, 16. 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
52. AP to SP, “Tuesday morning,” 1938. Lilly.
53. AP to SP, “Tuesday morning,” 1938; AP to SP, 1938. Lilly.
54. AP to SP, 1938. Lilly.
55. AP to SP, 8 Apr. 1939. Lilly.
56. AP to SP, 9 Apr. 1939. Lilly.
57. SP to Otto Plath, 19 Feb. 1940. L1, 3–4.
58. SP to Otto Plath, June 1940. Lilly.
59. SP, “Autograph transcript of 40 juvenile poems.” 127550, LHMS, Morgan Library.
60. Andrew Wilson, Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted (New York: Scribner, 2013), 89; 3.
61. Harriet Rosenstein, notes on Fran McCullough interview, 1973–74. 2.20, MSS 1489, Emory.
62. LH, 23.
63. JP, 263–64.
64. Even when Sylvia was a toddler, Aurelia had soothed her with an early version of the song: “I remember that she was sitting in her high chair the first time she heard a clap of thumber [sic]. She leaned forward, both hands grasping the tray, and looked at my face intently. I laughed and sang out, ‘Boom-boom-boom!’ She relaxed, leaning against the back of her chair, now pounding on the tray, calling out laughingly, ‘Boom-boom-boom!’ ” Draft introduction, LH. 30.66a/b, SPC, Smith.
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