Tempest-Tossed: The Spirit of Isabella Beecher Hooker

6. Motherhood, and Confusion

6 Motherhood, and Confusion Wearestandingatthe carport — alateraddition — oftheHookermansionin Hartford,whichisjustoffI-84,whichrunseasttowestthroughConnecticut, effectively cutting the state in half. You wouldn’t know it from looking, but this brick home with the peeling white Gothic windows was once the center of Nook Farm, a storied neighborhood that gave Hartford its international reputation. Mark Twain came here for parties. Harriet came and left her calling card with the scribbled note “Where are you? I was here” for her little sister. The great and powerful who passed through Hartford — then something of a Venice of the Americas — dined, partied, and sometimes spent the evening here. The Hooker House has been sold, bought, and sold again, and now sits amongwhatPeter,therentmanagerforthecurrentowner,theSurreyGroup, calls “chicken coops.” And he is accurate, if chickens were prone to living in brick bomb shelters. Scattered on what was once the Hookers’ spacious lawnare aseries of three-story apartmentbuildings builtinthe 1960s. Across the street is the historic Hartford Public High School, founded in 1638 and second only to Boston Latin for longevity among public high schools in the country. The school has an impressive and growing archive and museum, led by a retired social studies teacher, R. J. Luke Williams, who talks about his project as a father would a child. That sense of history has not crossed the street. Peter was unaware of the Hookers, though he said he was interested, and on a rainy fall day he gamely unlocked the door for Elizabeth Burgess, collections manager of the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, and me. She’d brought a camera. I’d brought an iron will not to be giddy. ThehometheHookerslovedsomuchisnowdividedintoeightapartments Motherhood, and Confusion 59 and, the Hartford housing market being what it is, three were available for rent. The two-bedroom apartments had wood floors and high ceilings and what looked to be original molding for $735 a month. I immediately tried to figure out what possessions I’d jettison to fit into the front apartment, the one overlookingthelate-additioncarport.Peterpointedoutthepeelingpaintand apologized that the building was not better kept. He also motioned toward the steep slate roof, which had held up well, he said. Good thing. Repairs require a crane. Peter was a willing listener, so I was off and running on the highlights of Isabella’s life — delighted for a new victim for Isabella non sequiturs. He perked up at the séances. You should move here and have séances with some of the residents, he said. Some of them have been dead for years. The front door opened to a dark entry hall that was partly covered in cherry. The Gothic staircase was carved cherry, and I told him this was the staircase that Isabella must have famously raced down at a New Year’s Eve party in the 1870s. While her guests — including Mark Twain — chatted below, Isabella was upstairs in her bedroom, having a séance. She ran down the stairs — some accounts say she carried a tomahawk, though that seems weird — and frightened the guests. We walked upstairs and Peter began to unlock apartments that weren’t rented. They were clean, compact, and I had no idea what the rooms held during Isabella’s day. I wanted very much to figure out which was her and John’sbedroom,buttheaddedwallsandextradoorsthrewme.Onebathroom had a claw-foot bathtub. Another had a marble sink. There was a tin roof off one bedroom, on which Isabella was supposed to have napped during hot Hartford summers.1 Part of me was thinking her spirit might have lingered here, though I was unclear if that is a dead Spiritualist’s way. Do they “haunt?” I don’t think so, but she poured so much of her self into this house, I wonder if she might have left some of her soul. At one point, I turned to look down a hall, and Beth was snapping photos in a far bedroom, backlit by the dim autumn light. I tried to imagine her in a long dress, but no. It wasn’t Isabella. And if it was, would I have screamed, run to her, or kept the vision to myself? Fromallindications,theHookershadlivedcomfortablywithJohn’sparents in Farmington — or, at least, the outspoken Isabella left no evidence of any 60 Tempest-Tossed Isabella in the 1850s. Courtesy of the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford, Connecticut. disharmonylivingatherin-laws’house.TheHartfordhousewastheircrowning achievement, a marker of how well they were doing financially. Their physicalwealthmadeIsabellauncomfortable.She...