Text: Martha Louise Rayne, “A Playmate of Poe,” Chicago Times-Herald (Chicago, IL), vol. XLIII, no. 325, June 15, 1897, p. 6, col. 7

[page 6, column 7:]

SHE WAS A PLAYMATE OF POE

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Looking like some ideal conception of the painter's art that has just stepped from its frame, Mrs. Minna Phelps sat in her pleasant parlor, quaintly furnished with relics of the past, and chatted familiarly of the friend of her childhood, Edgar Allan Poe.

“We all loved him sincerely,” she said, “my father and brother, my mother and my two sisters. He was my brother's sponsor at baptism, he and Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]], although they were Protestants and my mother a Catholic. I can show you the record in our old Bible, as it was written there on that day.”

* * * * *

There it was, indeed, in the fine Italian hand of the period, but the boy's name was Edgar Albert, and Mrs. Phelps explained the change by saying that Poe himself substituted Albert for Allan, from a feeling that the uncle after whom he was named Allan had not treated him right, and that the name had brought him nothing but bad luck.

“He was never prejudiced without good reason,” continued his friend, in whose heart his memory has been kept green all these years; “he was gentleness and generosity combined, but fate seemed to have a grudge against him. Even in death he was slandered. Nothing could make me believe that he did not die from a stroke of apoplexy, instead, as was currently believed, from a protracted spree. He was never a drunkard. I defy any proof that he was. But at that time wine was on every sideboard, and it was only considered hospitable to urge it upon guests. One small glass would excite Mr. Poe's brain to madness. I remember when we first moved to Fordham, N. Y., how Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]] asked mother never to offer Poe — ‘darling Eddie,’ she called him — a drop or wine. A cup of tea or coffee excited that abnormal condition of mind in which he lived to exaltation. His moods were erratic without any stimulant. One day he would romp with us children and play ‘Dr. Busby,’ a game then in vogue, with the most charming and winsome manners; the next he would talk to my mother in a dreary, pensive mood and we would be afraid of him. I mean afraid to disturb him, for we had a great respect for genius, belonging as we did to a family distinguished for achievement in many directions.”

* * * * *

“I have been asked at different times if Poe was really as poor as he was said to be. At the time when we lived near the Poe cottage at Fordham he was very poor, but his condition was never talked over before us children. I can remember carrying a basket many a time — my brother assisting — to Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]]. It would be very heavy, but we knew nothing of its contents, and our only real errand was to loiter at the cottage door in hopes of seeing our friend the poet. We thought he was badly used because all the world did not recognize his genius and esteem it as we did.

* * * * *

“But I know now that genius did not command the honor in those days that it did later. Now that everything that belonged to Poe is venerated, it seems strange that he wanted bread when he was with us. I understand that Congress has passed a bill making the Poe cottage a national possession, reserved for sight-seers. When I think of him struggling along with his poor little wife, the ‘Lost Lenore’ of “The Raven,” I don’t seem to care for those posthumous honors. Why, the very clothes he wore were significant of the odium of genteel poverty.”

Mrs. Phelps related with deep feeling the pleasure it gave her to remember that she made scrolls of the poet's writing, and said that when he brought in a new poem written on narrow strips of paper it delighted him to have her manufacture a cornucopia out of the effusion, which he would carry away with great gayety. For these trifling services he gave small presents, one being a rosewood box which had belonged to his wife — his cousin — Virginia Clem [[Clemm]]. Mrs. Andre, the mother of Mrs. Phelps, had asked him if he did not wish to keep the jewel box of Virginia, but he shook his head and sank into deep melancholy, as if his memories were already more than he could bear.

* * * * *

“Sometimes,” continued his friend and playmate, “Poe was almost hilarious in his mirth — he was either away up or down in the depths. It was at these times that his enemies said he was drinking, but we knew it was a mood that bordered on insanity, caused by an excited condition of the brain. He would come to our house to have my sister sing and play to him. She would dance, also, to entertain him, being accomplished as a child in music, dancing and advantages that descended to us naturally from our French ancestors, and I think it was this strain of French blood that made us so appreciative of our dear American friend, and his volatile spirits coincided better with our own than the colder and more conservative manners of that day. When he was in the dumps we never annoyed him by questions, but let him sit for hours listening to our nonsense, or keeping quiet if our mother bade us, until the dark spell passed. Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]] would often drop in to see if he were with us, and would say with the kindest manner. ‘Poor Eddie doesn’t feel good to-day.’ She was more than most mothers to him, and never had a word of blame. There were three women who devoted themselves to him, each in a different degree. His sister Rosalie made up the trio. When Mrs. Clem [[Clemm]] was left alone after his death she wrote to my mother asking her to come and end our days with her. Before the letter was answered, owing to the illness and death of my father, other arrangements were made, and we never saw her again. Her last words were to ask to be laid beside ‘darling They were all simple, faithful souls, devoted to each other, but without a grain of worldly wisdom, as irresponsible as children. I will not say here that Poe was never intoxicated in his life, for one glass of sherry would have affected him like a delirium, but he was unfortunately judged. His genius should have protected him if there was an occasional lapse, owing to the laxity of social life at that period. I love to sit here and include him in my memories of a happy childhood. It only seems like a season since my mother came home from an exhibition she had attended with my father, Major Andre, and I heard them both talking about a handsome stranger who looked like one of the statues, and when we saw him come in the next day with my father we knew from the description that he was the man. The hold that he took on our fresh young imaginations has never been loosened. To have played ‘Dr. Busby’ with Edgar Allan Poe is more to me than to have his poems in manuscript in my family. He was more to me than a poet — he was a playmate.”

M. L. RAYNE.