The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson Part 1

The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson.

by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez.

PREFACE

When I first set out to tell the life story of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, I received the following letter from her old friend Mr.

Bruce Porter:

"Once when I urged your sister to set down the incidents of her life she listened, pondered, and then dismissed the suggestion as impossible, as her life had been like a dazed rush on a railroad express, and she despaired of recovering the incidental memories. The years with Stevenson have of course been adequately told, but the earlier period--Indianapolis and California--had a romance as stirring, even if sharpened by the American glare. This sharpness has already, for all of us, begun to fade, to take on the glamour of time and distance, and I cannot think of a better literary service than to make the fullest possible record now, before it utterly fades away."

It was not only the difficulty of recalling events that caused her to resist all urgings to undertake this task, but a certain shy reluctance in speaking of herself that was characteristic of her. It has, therefore, fallen to me to collect the widely scattered material from various parts of the world and weave it into a coherent whole as best I may, but my regret will never cease that she did not herself tell her own story.

It would take a more competent pen than mine to do her justice; but whoever reads this book from cover to cover will surely agree that no woman ever had a life of more varied experiences nor went through them all with a stauncher courage.

It is right that I should acknowledge here my profound obligation to the kind friends who have generously placed their personal recollections at my disposal. These are more definitely referred to in the body of the book. Aside from these personal contributions, the main sources of material have been as follows:

Ancestral genealogies, including _The Descendants of Joran Kyn_, by Doctor Gregory B. Keen, secretary of the Pennsylvania Historical Society.

Data concerning the genealogy of the Keen and Van de Grift families collected by Frederic Thomas, of New York, nephew of Mrs. Stevenson.

Notes covering the life of Mrs. Stevenson up to the age of sixteen years, as dictated by herself.

A collection of her own letters to friends and relatives.

Letters to Mrs. Stevenson from friends.

Extracts from various books and magazines, including _The Letters of Mrs. M. I. Stevenson_ (Methuen and Company, London); _The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_, by Graham Balfour; _The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson_, edited by Sidney Colvin; _Vailima Memories_, by Lloyd Osbourne and Isobel Osbourne Strong, now Mrs. Salisbury Field; _The Cruise of the Janet Nichol_, by Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson; _McClure's_, _Scribner's_, and the _Century_ magazines. Acknowledgment is due the publishers of the above books and periodicals for their courteous permissions.

A diary kept by Mrs. Stevenson of her life in Samoa, for which I am indebted to the considerate kindness of Miss Gladys Peac.o.c.k, an English lady, into whose hands the diary fell by accident.

My own personal recollections.

Above all, I wish to express my heartfelt grat.i.tude to Mrs.

Stevenson's daughter, Isobel Field, without whose unflagging zeal in forwarding the work it could scarcely have been carried to a successful conclusion, and to my son, Louis A. Sanchez, for valuable a.s.sistance in the actual writing of the book.

N. V. S.

Berkeley, California, January, 1919.

THE LIFE OF MRS. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

CHAPTER I

ANCESTORS.

To arrive at a full understanding of the complex and unusual character of f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift Stevenson, which perhaps played as large a part as her beauty and intellectual charm in drawing to her the affections of one of the greatest romance writers of our day, one must go back and seek out all the uncommon influences that combined to produce it--a long line of st.u.r.dy ancestors, running back to the first adventurers who left their sheltered European homes and sailed across the sea to try their fortunes in a wild, unknown land; her childhood days spent among the hardy surroundings of pioneer Indiana, with its hints of a past tropical age and its faint breath of Indian reminiscence; the early breaking of her own family ties and her fearless adventuring by way of the Isthmus of Panama to the distant land of gold, and her brave struggle against adverse circ.u.mstances in the mining camps of Nevada. All these prenatal influences and personal experiences, so foreign to the protected lives of the women of Stevenson's own race, threw about her an atmosphere of thrilling New World romance that appealed with irresistible force to the man who was himself Romance personified.

f.a.n.n.y Stevenson was a lineal descendant of two of the oldest families in the United States, her first ancestors landing in this country in the early part of the seventeenth century. In 1642 Joran Kyn, called "The Snow White," reached America in the s.h.i.+p _Fama_ as a member of the life-guard of John Printz, governor of the Swedish colony established in the New World by King Gustavus Adolphus. He took up a large tract of land and was living in peace and comfort on the Delaware River when William Penn landed in America. He was the progenitor of eleven generations of descendants born on American soil.

His memory is embalmed in an old doc.u.ment still extant as "a man who never irritated even a child."

In the list of his descendants one Matthias stands out as "a tall handsome man, with a very melodious voice which could be intelligibly heard at times across the Delaware."

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Keen, about 83 years of age, maternal great-grandfather of f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift Stevenson.]

A later descendant, John Keen, born in 1747, fought and shed his blood in the war of American Independence, having been wounded in the battle of Princeton while in the act of delivering a message to General Was.h.i.+ngton. It was he who married Mildred Cook, daughter of James Cook, an English sea-captain who commanded the _London Packet_, plying between London and New York. Family tradition has it that he was a near relative of Captain Cook of South Sea fame. When f.a.n.n.y Stevenson went a-sailing in the South Seas, following in the track of the great explorer, she boldly claimed this kins.h.i.+p, and, much to her delight, was immediately christened Tappeni Too-too, which was as near as the natives could come to Captain Cook's name.

We have a charming old-fas.h.i.+oned silhouette portrait in our family of a lovely young creature with a dainty profile and curls gathered in a knot. It is "sweet Kitty Weaver," who married John Cook Keen, son of the Revolutionary hero, and became the grandmother of f.a.n.n.y Stevenson.

Little f.a.n.n.y, when on a visit to Philadelphia in her childhood days, was shown a pair of red satin slippers worn by this lady, and was no doubt given a lecture on the folly of vanity, for it was by walking over the snow to her carriage in the little red slippers that sweet Kitty Weaver caught the cold which caused her death.

Our mother, Esther Thomas Keen, one of John and Kitty Keen's six children, was born in Philadelphia, December 3, 1811. She was described by one who knew her in her youth as "a little beauty of the dark vivid type, with perfectly regular features, black startled eyes, and quant.i.ties of red-brown curls just the color of a cherry wood sideboard that stood in her house." She was a tiny creature, under five feet in height, and never in her life weighed more than ninety pounds; but in spite of that she was exceedingly strong, swift in her movements, straight as an arrow to the end of her days, and always went leaping up the stairs, even when she was over eighty. Fear was absolutely unknown to her. She once caught a mad dog and held its mouth shut with her hands, protecting her children till help came.

She was resourceful in emergency, whether it was sickness or accident, and never lost her presence of mind. She had a tender sympathy for animals and all weak, suffering, and young creatures, and it could be truthfully said of her, as of Joran Kyn, her ancestor, that she "never irritated even a child." Her daughter f.a.n.n.y said of her: "I never heard my mother speak an angry word, no matter what the provocation, and she was the mother of seven children. No matter what the offense might be she always found an excuse." In this she was like the old Scotch woman who, when told she would find something to praise even in the devil, said: "Weel, there's nae denyin' he's a verra indoostrious body."

It was from our little mother that my sister f.a.n.n.y inherited her vivid dark beauty, her reticence, her fort.i.tude in suffering, her fearlessness in the presence of danger, and her unfailing resourcefulness.

Jacob Leendertsen Van de Grift, the first paternal ancestor of whom we have any record, settled in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, towards the close of the seventeenth century. The graves of several of his descendants are still to be seen in the fine old cemetery at Andalusia, and upon the tombstone of one of them is this epitaph:

"Farewell my friends and wife so dear, I am not dead but sleeping here.

My debts are paid, my grave you see."

This name has descended in an unbroken line from Jacob Leendertsen Van de Grift, of New Amsterdam, through eleven generations, to the brother of f.a.n.n.y Stevenson, Jacob Van de Grift, of Riverside, California.

John Miller, a paternal great-grandfather of ours, was also Dutch. The family account of him is that he fought at Brandywine, crossed the Delaware with Was.h.i.+ngton, was wounded at the battle of Trenton, and that when he died, at the age of eighty-four years, the city of Philadelphia paid him the tribute of burial with military honours.

Miller married twice, and it was Elizabeth, a daughter by his second wife, who married a Jacob Van de Grift.

Her son, Jacob Van de Grift, was born in Philadelphia in 1816. Upon the early death of her first husband she married again, presenting to her children the cruel stepfather of fiction. Indeed, the story of our father's childhood and youth and the adventures of his brothers and sisters reads more like melodrama than sober fact. One brother, Harry, wandering disconsolate in the market-place, was carried off by a kind and wealthy Kentuckian, who took a fancy to the handsome boy and brought him up as his own son. Matilda, the beauty of the family, seeing a peaceful Quaker couple sitting by a window, was so struck by the contrast between their gentle lives and her own that she went into the house and asked to be allowed to stay with them. The kind-hearted people were so touched by her distress and beauty that they adopted her as their own. Little Jacob, encouraged by the success of his brother and sister, ran away on his own account, but fell into evil hands, and was beaten and ill-used until rescued by his beautiful sister Matilda. Fortunately for Jacob, he found favour in the sight of Grandfather Miller, who educated him, dressed him well, and gave him a good allowance. At this time there was an outbreak of small riots in Philadelphia, caused by roughs attacking the Quakers. The "shadbellies," as they were derisively called, did not fight back, which made the sport all the more alluring to the cowardly rioters.

Young Van de Grift, who was an excellent amateur boxer, joined in these frays with enthusiasm in defense of the Quakers. It was not only his fine American spirit of fair play that urged him into these fights, but he felt a deep grat.i.tude to the Quakers all his life on account of his sister Matilda. Strangely enough, Grandfather Miller disapproved of young Van de Grift's conduct. He scolded and fumed, and when, early one morning, his grandson was found on his door-step beaten black and blue, the unreasonable old man, utterly losing sight of the chivalric cause, sent the troublesome lad away--to the farthest place, in fact, that he could reach. This place turned out to be the frontier backwoods town of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Here Jacob's attention was soon attracted by a pretty young woman, a tiny, dainty creature named Esther Keen (our mother, whom I have already described), who was on a visit to her sister. The records show that they were married in Philadelphia in 1837.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jacob Van de Grift, about 56 years of age, father of f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift Stevenson.]

Like many another irresponsible young man, Jacob Van de Grift married became quite a different person. Returning to Indianapolis, he built a house for himself with the aid of friends, and, launching out into the lumber business, soon became one of the prosperous and solid citizens of the place. His house was on the "Circle," next door to Henry Ward Beecher's church. This was Mr. Beecher's first pastorate, and between him and his neighbour a warm friends.h.i.+p sprang up. In after years, when Beecher had become a national figure and scandal attacked his name, the friend of his youth, Jacob Van de Grift, clung loyally to his faith in his old pastor and firmly refused to believe any of the charges against him.

The little house on the Circle was made into a pleasant home partly by furniture sent by Jacob's mother from Philadelphia, partly by articles made by himself, for he had served a short apprentices.h.i.+p at cabinet-making while living in his grandfather's house. Among other pieces of furniture made by him was the cradle in which f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift was rocked. As long as she lived she never forgot just how this cradle looked.

Jacob Van de Grift, father of f.a.n.n.y Van de Grift Stevenson, was a fine-looking man, broad-shouldered and deep-chested, slightly above medium height, blue-eyed, black-haired, and with the regular features and rosy complexion of his Dutch ancestors. One particularly noticed the extraordinarily keen expression of his eyes, which seemed to pin you to the wall when he looked at you. This penetrating glance was inherited by his daughter f.a.n.n.y, and was often remarked upon by those who met her. He made money easily but spent it royally, and, in consequence, died comparatively poor. He had a hasty temper but a generous heart, and while his hand was always open to the poor and unhappy, it was a closed fist ready to strike straight from the shoulder to resent an insult or defend the oppressed. Like his ancestor of the Andalusia cemetery, he could not endure to owe any man a debt. It was from our father that my sister f.a.n.n.y inherited her broad and tolerant outlook on life, her hatred of injustice and cruelty, her punctiliousness in money matters, and her steadfast loyalty to friends.

CHAPTER II