Date: Fri 20-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

Hawley-history

Full Text:

Antique Toys And Portrait Recall Tragedy In Hawley Family

BY DOROTHY EVANS

A pair of child-sized irons barely big enough to remove two wrinkles from a

doll's dress.

Play dishes and a tiny hand mirror.

An elaborately stenciled fan.

A beaded purse made by Mary Elizabeth Hawley.

A dog-eared copy of The Three Little Kittens.

These toys, once used by our town benefactress when she was a child, are now

on exhibit at the new Cyrenius H. Booth Library and history buffs or

collectors of Hawley family lore should not miss seeing them.

The collection being shown in the flat glass display case located behind the

circulation desk, was assembled by Booth Library Curator Caroline Stokes from

a group of Hawley family items that were donated by a distant Hawley cousin

living in Missouri, Mirabel Crabtree.

"She is 80 years old or so and is clearing out her house," explained Mrs

Stokes.

Not only were the toys used by Mary Elizabeth Hawley, who lived from 1857-1930

and was 14 years old when the family moved from Bridgeport to Newtown, we can

assume that they might also have been used by her younger brothers, because

one little book has the wobbly signature "Willie B." written across a top page

margin.

Three Sons Died Young

The exhibit of toys has its tragic side, especially when one realizes that

none of the three Hawley sons, who were all born after Mary Elizabeth,

survived to adulthood.

Two of the boys died very young, at ages two and four. The third lived to age

15.

While discussing what little is known of Hawley family history, Mrs Stokes

ventured her own opinion about what that devastating series of losses might

have meant to the children's mother, Sarah Booth Hawley.

"In those days they observed so much mourning. They wore black lace and black

scarves and didn't go out. That poor mother. It explains why she was so

reclusive and why she probably encouraged her daughter to be that way, too."

"To have all that wealth and no son to pass it on to. It gets you thinking,"

Mrs Stokes said.

She added that there is much mystery surrounding both parents.

"So much attention is always centered on Mary Elizabeth," she said, referring

to a recently uncovered story of a marriage gone wrong, followed by a long

spinsterhood and eventual emergence of the town benefactress as an

independent-thinking woman who wanted to leave her own legacy in Newtown, of

beautiful buildings for public use.

"We do know that the couple [Marcus and Sarah Hawley] did not move to Newtown

until 1871, the year that Sarah's father, Dr Cyrenius H. Booth, for whom the

library is named, died."

That was also one year after Sarah Booth Hawley's last child, Harry C., died

at the age of two.

Portrait Painted

From The Coffin

Of William B. Hawley, the first boy and second child, born after Mary

Elizabeth, we know very little. Only that he was born in 1860 and died in

1864, at four years of age.

His picture, which Mrs Stokes said was painted "from the casket according to

current custom," hangs in the Cyrenius H. Booth Library's first floor

reference room.

A rumor that William B. Hawley died by falling through the ice while skating

is probably apocryphal, says town historian Dan Cruson.

But the rather ghoulish story behind the painting is most likely true, Mr

Cruson said, since he had actually seen a "very small postmortem tintype"

taken of the boy after his death.

It showed him with his eyes closed, propped up in a chair.

"Artists were engaged to come to the coffin and do this. They would sketch on

the spot and finish the portrait later," Mrs Stokes said, at which time they

would add "certain glorified touches," such as the pipestem ringlets down each

side of his face and the clear, blue-eyed gaze.

"Otherwise, we have no family photograph of the Hawley children," Mrs Stokes

said.

Two More Sons Who Died

A second son named William E. Hawley was born in 1865, just a year after

William B. died.

The second William lived to be 15 years old, dying in 1880, possibly as the

result of a "common illness," Mrs Stokes speculated.

At the time of his death, it is believed that William E. was either already

enrolled at Yale University or planning to attend, she said.

A third son, Harry C., lived only two years, from 1868 to 1870.

Their father, Marcus Hawley, must have taken these losses to heart, Mrs Stokes

said. They may well have affected the way he raised Mary Elizabeth, who was to

be his only surviving child.

"Because he had lost three sons, the father trained Mary Elizabeth to carry on

the family hardware business."

He frequently took her along with him to New York City, where he kept an

apartment, she added.

They also made several trips by train across the United States to California

where Marcus' brother, Thomas, was managing the West Coast part of the

business.

"That experience has to have exposed her to many interesting things," Mrs

Stokes said. "We know of her as a recluse and indeed she became one, but she

was a business woman as well."

As for Mary Elizabeth's mother, Sarah Booth Hawley, Mrs Stokes said, "I never

have been able to figure her out."

Even by today's standards, Sarah was not a young woman when she had her four

children. Mary Elizabeth was born when she was 27, and the three boys came

along when she was 34, 35 and 38 years old, respectively.

"It must have been terribly devastating," to lose the three youngest, Mrs

Stokes said, but in those days you mourned privately.

"She's not known for doing anything special except embroideries. She didn't

have to go out, so she didn't. And there was Mary Elizabeth always leaving to

go with Marcus Hawley on business in Bridgeport and New York, and Sarah Booth

staying home."