I can't remember the last time a book made me cry; it was probably 50 years ago when I first read "Little Women"; Beth's death was unbearably sad, but there is a death in this book that is even more shocking and unexpected, all the more so because it is a biography, and not fiction. Louisa May Alcott (the middle name "May" was not added to her name for the lilt, as in Cheryl "Lynn," but was in fact her mother's maiden name -- a charming custom at the time, but not in the best interest of security, today, almost like my telling you my mother's maiden name) lived a mean, hard-scrabble life. Growing up in a family of four daughters, with a transcendentalist-philosopher father who did not believe in working for pay, owning property, or running a business; Louisa and her sisters subsisted on a diet of raw apples and cold water for much of their childhood, with the occasional hard cracker for fiber. Her father did believe in charity, however, so her life -- and her mother's life -- was a constant scratch for money to support the family, any way they could.
Louisa was a teacher, governess, and paid companion to an invalid woman; until at last she was able to bring in enough money through her writing to keep her parents comfortable; although there were no luxuries in the Alcott homestead, eventually she was able to install a furnace. Even then, it seemed, when she was a famous author, earning large advances for her books, there was never enough money for her to feel secure.
She did indeed have an older sister, who married a steady, boring young man (the Meg and John Brooke of "Little Women") and a frail sister, Beth, who met the same fate as her eponymous doppelganger in "LW", and a young, pretty artist sister, the baby and beauty of the family, named Abigail, nicknamed Abby (after her mother, who was nicknamed Abba) who changed her name to May (to distinguish herself from her mother).
The world of the Alcotts in Massachusetts was populated with the era's greatest thinkers: Ralph Waldo Emerson was their next-door neighbor; as a teenager Louisa had a mad crush on a local gardener, Henry David Thoreau, a misogynistic mama's boy whom one could kindly describe as a "shrub shlub." Nathaniel Hawthorne was another neighbor; Walt Whitman made an appearence in Concord; May, studying painting in Europe, befriended no less a light than Mary Cassatt, the pre-eminent female artist of the time. The Alcotts' world was peopled with women's suffragists (Louisa voting for the first time -- in a school board election!) and abolitionists such as John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison.
Louisa's greatest personal triumph was probably her service as a nurse during the Civil War; although the adventure ended badly, and left her health in ruins for the rest of her life, it was there that she used her hands, and head, and heart to heal the broken young men in the Grand Army hospital. Surprisingly, and sadly, the writing of "Little Women" was not the heartfelt outpouring of a romantic soul, but a simply a work ground out by a sick, tired woman to pay her family's endless debts.
When, towards the end, Emerson appears in the family's parlor -- for he had been asked to "break the news" of yet another sad passing (and you know your family is distinguished when America's greatest living [and perhaps all-time] philosopher is in your home to deliver sad news) -- you'll reach for your Puffs, with Aloe.
But don't cry for Louisa, when death finally comes, it is an almost blessed relief.
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