My newest novel, Innocents at Home, features two women who were on the cruise with Mark Twain that inspired his novel Innocents Abroad. You can read more about Nina Larrowe and Emma Beach in a previous post. Although the story is dominated by the women, Innocents at Home includes some interesting men from history. From left to right above, they are: Henry Ward Beecher, Mark Twain, Abbott Thayer, and Marcus Larrowe.
MARCUS LARROWE
Marcus was Nina’s husband. He was educated as a lawyer, but his true love was the science of memory. His own memory was amazing. Marcus could repeat, word for word, a column newspaper article after hearing it read once. He could also repeat, in the same order or backwards, a list of several hundred words anyone might read to him.
In the 1860s, in London, Marcus advertised himself as a French teacher and a Memory and Success professor under the name Alphonse Loisette. This is where he developed the system that he eventually was accused of plagiarizing.
In the early 1890s, Marcus returned to the United States and published his book, Assimilative Memory: or How to Attend and Never Forget. A brief description of his mnemonic system can be found here. He maintained his residence in London through the first half of the 1890s, advertising as a memory teacher in city directories. He died in 1896.
ABBOTT THAYER
Abbott Thayer grew up close to nature, painting landscapes and later portraits. He is best known, however, for his angel paintings that use his daughter Mary as a subject. His interest in angels may have come from great tragedies in his life. His first wife, Kate Bloede, was the manifestation of his ideal woman. With her he had five children, two of whom died very young, then Kate died of a lung infection.
Emma Beach, a main character in Innocents at Home married Thayer after her dear friend Kate died. Emma helped raise his children and manage her husband’s bipolar episodes and eccentricities. After this marriage, Thayer lived near Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire and painted the mountain often. He died of a stroke in 1921. On hearing of Thayer’s death, John Singer Sargent said, “Too bad he’s gone. He was the best of them.”
MARK TWAIN
Everyone has heard of Mark Twain, the author. Mark Twain, however, is an antagonist in my novel. The story is that Emma Beach fell in love with him on the cruise, and Nina Larrowe hated him for the rest of her life. In different ways, he ruined both of their lives.
Family legend says that Emma’s father told her, “You’ll never marry that Western roughneck.” It became a moot point, however, when Twain married Olivia Langdon. There is no evidence he thought of Emma as anything more than a friend. Many of his letters to Emma are preserved in the Smithsonian’s online archives.
Nina Larrowe’s hatred of the author may have had its roots in Twain’s sarcastic comments about the other members of the cruise in speeches like The American Vandal, given to audiences across America upon their return. Not everyone sees the humor in sarcasm, especially when it is directed at them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Arguably the most popular preacher of the world in his time, Henry Ward Beecher captivated his audience, especially the women. He came from a family of preachers, but rejected the hellfire and brimstone style of his father. He styled God as benevolent and loving, which a new concept for churchgoers of the late 1800s.
from “The Most Famous Man in America”
Beecher’s affection for Chloe Beach, Emma’s mother. was probably no different than his feelings for other women in his congregation. Except, of course, for Violet Beach, Chloe’s youngest daughter, rumored to be fathered by Beecher. During the public scandal and trial over an affair with one of those women, public opinion believed that Beecher preached to seven or eight of his mistresses every Sunday. Read more about that trial in my short story “And the Righteous Prevail” in the new Paper Lantern Writers’ anthology Destiny Comes Due, available November 1.
Now that you’ve met the men of Innocents at Home, I hope you enjoy reading their stories as they intertwine with Emma Beach and Nina Larrowe, two of my ancestors. To see how I’m related to them, you can peruse my family tree.