By Susan Martin, Senior Processing Archivist
I’m very happy to announce that the Bullard-Lauriat family papers are now available for research at the MHS. I’ve been processing this collection for longer than I care to admit, but it’s definitely been worth it. It’s a fascinating collection documenting the lives of multiple generations of the related Bullard and Lauriat families.
If you know any of the Bullards or Lauriats, it’s probably Charles E. Lauriat, Jr. Long-time Bostonians may remember Lauriat’s bookstores, which closed in 1999. Lauriat’s began as Estes & Lauriat, co-founded in 1872 by Charles’s father, and Charles served as president of the company from his father’s death in 1920 to his own in 1937.
Charles is probably best known today for one dramatic incident in his life: he survived the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915. In fact, he didn’t just survive; he saved the lives of many others, as well. His correspondence from that time describes the events and their aftermath. I particularly enjoyed it when Charles wrote his father-in-law to gently chide him for bragging to people about what he’d done. His father-in-law’s reply? Essentially “sorry, not sorry.”
Charles wrote a book about his experiences called The Lusitania’s Last Voyage, a riveting and surprisingly modest account.
But I don’t want to give Charles all the attention. The majority of the papers actually belong to his wife Marian (née Bullard). Charles and Marian married on March 20, 1912, and by all accounts, theirs was a very happy and loving union. They had five children together, though their first, Natalie, tragically died as an infant.
Marian’s parents were George P. Bullard and Nina (née Jenks) Bullard, and they’re also represented in the collection, especially Nina. She was a world traveler, wrote detailed diaries and letters about her travels, and even gave speeches to local clubs. At the outbreak of World War I, Nina was stranded in Europe, and her letters home about the situation were printed in Boston newspapers. Her husband George was a prominent businessman and politician in West Newton, Massachusetts.
Other family members you’ll find in the collection include Charles’s parents; Marian’s sister Clara “Cherry” Bullard, who married Rev. Julian C. Jaynes (the officiant at her parents’ wedding!); cousin Martha F. Metcalf, who taught at schools for the deaf; and Charles and Marian’s children, especially minister Nathaniel and demographer Patience. There’s even an autograph book once belonging to Nina’s younger brother that contains the signatures of Louisa May Alcott, Dickens, Longfellow, Tennyson, and others.
I’d like to mention one person in particular, Rena Struggles. She was a British woman who spent decades working as a housekeeper and child care provider for families in England and the U.S., including the Lauriats. Even when the Lauriat children were grown, Rena corresponded frequently with the family. Her letters during World War II are heartbreaking. She lost her mother and her home in the London Blitz.
The Bullard-Lauriat collection is large; it fills over 32 record cartons. When the boxes came to us, they were full of miscellaneous loose unidentified papers, letters still in envelopes, mountains of acidic newspaper clippings, oversize rolled documents, you name it. I’m very gratified the papers are now arranged, described, and available for any and all interested researchers.