As I delved into the history of the steamship disaster, I discovered that although Hawthorne biographers all mentioned Louisa’s unfortunate death, they focused on Hawthorne’s reaction and subsequent production of the Pierce biography, glossing over John’s and Louisa’s different fates as simply an elderly relative and his caretaker niece being in a complicated disaster which had already been closely examined. But after researching Hawthorne family letters, memoirs, and literary critiques, as well as my family’s Dike and Blair archives, I conceived instead of a possible unhappy love triangle that might explain the dichotomy of fates.
However, I needed a protagonist to tell the tale. John Stephens Dike, John Dike’s son and Nathaniel’s cousin, filled this role. Family letters revealed him to be a beloved youth who bravely left his home in Salem to seek his fortune in his uncle’ business in far-away Steubenville, Ohio. John Stephens never returned to Salem, perhaps due to a rift with his hyper-religious and strict stepmother, Priscilla Manning Dike.
This division in the Dike family gave me a hero, John Stephens; a villain, Priscilla; and a victim, Louisa. All the chapters are written as monologues, because I wanted my relatives to have a chance to speak for themselves. Some of their words, and of those around them, are direct quotes from letters. John Stephens, John, and Priscilla, all reminisce, but Louisa writes in the first person present because her voice is extinguished tragically early.
The picture heading this blog is of George Dike Blair, John Stephens Dike’s nephew. I don’t have a portrait of John Stephens, but I am assuming there is some familial resemblance.
08/12/2021
