Victorian Mourning Album | Frances Eliza McCool | Portage, IN | 1858-1870s
This mid-19th century keepsake album made me cry: Most of them are filled with copied verses and generic messages from family and friends. This one contains mostly original poetry and most of the poems are about death. There was enough information inside to track down its original owner: Her name was Frances “Fanny” Eliza McCool, née Watson. She was born in New York and married Thomas McCool in 1859. He came from a founding family of Portage, the township in Indiana where they lived and also served in the 63rd Indiana Infantry Co. B in the Civil War. Like many 19th century women, Fanny’s life was marked by many losses. The album contains memorial poems for her father, who died at age 40, her sister Emma, and three children, all of whom died before the age of two. Her first child was Maitland McCool, nicknamed Berdie, who died on his second birthday of dropsy on the brain. The poems Fanny wrote about this loss absolutely broke my heart. One of the poems takes up two pages and she bordered the pages with black ink, like the black-edged mourning cards and stationery of the time. As I read on, I qas even sorrier to see she lost her next two children, Myrtle and Bertha. These three children are buried in the McCool Cemetery in Portage, although not all of the children are attributed to her online. Two of the couple’s five children made it to adulthood, a son and daughter Roy and Mabel. The verso of the title page is torn out and there are a couple of loose pages, otherwise the album is in good shape. It is mostly full with original content and the engravings are hand colored. It offers a poignant and fascinating glimpse into the life of a founding family of Indiana.