by Martha DeWolf
Jennie Marie Hastings married John Davies Campbell in early June 1882. She was twenty-two. Jenny Hastings, her mother, was forty-six, widowed for seventeen years and at yet another turning point in her life. Her life as a single mother was finished. In the next seventeen years, she would move from continent to continent, crossing the Atlantic to England and back again to round the horn of South America settling in Chile with her daughter’s family.
Hovey wrote again in July saying, “Since I last wrote you, I have been over to London and returned to this place - where the family of my pupil are staying.
I just missed seeing the Jennies who were away in the country & returned to London just after I left both Jennie & her mother were at Castle Head, a country house belonging to an Uncle of Mr. Campbell & were having a perfectly elegant time, so Jennie wrote me - driving about behind four in hands, going to the lakes and living in a kind of fairyland.
I worked hard all the time in London endeavoring to see the noted sights of the city; & was quite successful. I had friends who gave me a pass to the Tower & thereby saw all the prisons & cells & a chapel as well, not usually open to the public.
I was fortunate to get a ticket to the House of Commons when in session, and heard a debate on the “Electric Lighting Bill” I also saw the House of Lords, not in session & all the halls of the Parliament House and Westminster Abbey.
I went over St. Thomas hospital, which although not the largest I have seen, was the best arranged & cleanest. All the hospitals of Paris are so dark, dirty & unventilated. I had an excellent opportunity of seeing the queen, the Prince of Wales gave a lawn party & I saw her & her train as she rode to it.
She is very large & fat, red faced & far from handsome - in fact - she is not even good looking. Her train is preceded by two horse guardsman in brilliant uniform, carrying carbines before them & with fringes on the trigger. Guards with drawn swords follow, she drives in a carriage drawn by four cream colored horses & the guards follow in the same order. It makes quite a procession.
I saw many carriages of the nobility; & I admired the most, the sleek & well fed, and comfortable looking flunkies - the lackies & coachmen in livery, calves & powdered wigs.
The people of London were much excited about the news from Egypt; the papers were out with extra editions and I have heard that it reminded one of Election times at home …[1]
Mrs. Bowie, the mother of my boy, has been quite sick, but is now recovering. Life is very pleasant here with pleasant walks & sea bathing. I try to talk French a great deal; but there are a number of Americans in the place and I must often speak English. I saw Arthur in Paris, but not his mother who was in Switzerland. They soon return to America. I will write again soon & tell you of the life here.”
Later that year, Alice Bullard wrote to her brother but apparently he had not yet found time to reply. She wrote to him again in mid December and told him, “I wonder if you received my last letter, as you have not answered it I thought you might not have got it. We are having Winter in earnest now, it has been snowing all day, enough for fine sleighing. It is dreary & dismal enough here in the Wilderness.
It has seemed lonesome as can be today, as Cousin Jenny left Saturday for Boston & will stay till Wednesday in B(oston]. Then she leaves for New York, where she starts for her long journ
