Tuesday – Wednesday, April 19th – 20th, 2016
After a successful first half of our Lovecraft’s College Hill Walking Tour (again courtesy of Donovan K. Loucks), we took Tuesday to relax at Patricia’s AirBnB. During the day, we got to know her son, Michael, and his friend Ellery, who were knee deep in some fine woodworking projects.
In the evening, we had to check out the ice cream shop on the corner, Emily’s Frozen Lemonade, which we drive past every time we arrived at or departed from Patricia’s. Their frozen yogurt came in more exotic flavors than their soft serve ice cream: Raspberry Amaretto, Chocolate Almond, Oreo Cookie, and Heath Fudge!
We devoured our frozen delights before bed, then said goodnight to Patricia and Michael, as we would not see them in the morning. They were very hospitable hosts and we’d stay with them again in a heartbeat when next we tread the shores of Rhode Island.
The plan for Wednesday was to complete the second half of the walking tour on our way out of Providence, bound for another AirBnB location on the outskirts of Boston. So we packed up Saphira and found parking in the residential part of College Hill. Highlights from Wednesday’s Lovecraft mecca include:
The Cathedral of St. John, Episcopal (1810): Founded in 1720 as King’s Church, both Poe and Lovecraft haunted the graveyard of this church. It is on the National Register of Historic Places as well being a National Historic Landmark.
Lexie and I drifted among the tombstones, romanticizing what inspiration that talented and tormented writers of the past centuries would channel from such a solemn site.
Sarah Helen Whitman House (1783-92): Home of the poetess courted by Edgar Allan Poe.
Stephen Harris House (1763): “The Shunned House” of Lovecraft’s story and also the inspiration for the poem, “The House.” Though this house was abandoned and in poor condition during Lovecraft’s day, Lovecraft’s aunt Lillian lived here in 1919-20. It was particularly exciting to see “The Shunned House” as we had just listened to that short story the previous day.
Lexie had spotted the following house a few days prior, while we were driving around looking for Ron’s, noting how the building was actually divided into four different homes by mere paint.
Home of Franklin C. and Lillian D. Clark: This was once the home of Lovecraft’s uncle and aunt, the entrance being the door on the far left (161 Benefit St). We ate a lovely lunch at one of the building’s other occupants, Geoff’s Superlative Sandwiches. Not only was their grammar impeccable, but their food was pretty good as well!
The Colonial Apartments (1929): Lovecraft bemoaned the fact that this “wretched ultra-modern apartment-house with all urban sophistications” was built on College Hill. Note the entrance behind the tree in the center of the photo that’s been bricked up. I loved imagining the portal to an ancient evil from one of Lovecraft’s stories sealed away behind that brick, an evil from the dimensional cracks between space and time waiting for the planets to realign so they may once again make their return.
Ebenezer Knight Dexter House (1817): Once the Horace B. Knowles Funeral Home, this is where the funerals of Lovecraft and his aunt Lillian were held.
Providence Art Club (1786-89 and 1791): Lovecraft and his aunts attended art shows here and his elder aunt, Lillian, had paintings exhibited here.
Fleur de Lys Studio (1885): This house, designed in the 16th-century Norman style, was built by Providence artist Sydney Richmond Burleigh.
First Baptist Meetinghouse (1775): The congregation was founded in 1638 by Roger Williams. This is the oldest Baptist church in America and the mother church of the Baptists. Joesph Curwen married Eliza Tillinghast here.
Hope High School (1898): In 1904, Lovecraft entered Hope High School, remarking “I found high school a delight and stimulus instead of a bore.” However, he attended for a month leading into 1905, suffering a self-proclaimed “near breakdown,” and returning to the school in 1906. Although he completed that year, as well as the 1907-08 school year, he never graduated or received a diploma.
454 Angell Street (1881): Lovecrafts birthplace and a building he loved and hoped to someday have enough personal wealth to acquire it. His family lived here from 1893 until 1904 when his grandfather, Whipple Phillips, died. Unfortunately, the building was demolished in 1961…
… but a few years ago, the historical society associated with the Lovecraft Arts & Sciences store purchased a Lovecraft memorial for this spot where his former childhood home stood.
598 Angell Street (1892): Lovecraft’s home from 1904 until 1924, when he married Sonia Green and moved to New York for the following two years. It was built by architect Howard K. Hilton and is currently on the National Registry of Historical Places.
Ladd Observatory (1891): Constructed by Brown University and opened under the direction of Professor Winslow Upton. Lovecraft was a frequent visitor of the observatory, with the permission of Upton, who was considered a friend of the family.
The observatory remains part of the Brown University Physics Department and is apparently open every Tuesday night from 9pm to 10pm, weather permitting.
The final stop on this mecca of mine was Swan Point Cemetery, so we could see the grave of H.P. Lovecraft. I hadn’t exactly thought through how we would go about doing so, just knew it would complete the whole thought.
So on our way out of Providence, we pulled over to where the address that our GPS brought us. Immediately, I wanted to a grab a photograph of the cemetery entrance, for what reason, I never knew why.
What happened next was the universe at work on our behalf. There we were, parked outside of the Swan Point, as a vehicle began pulling up next to us. Because the car was in the way of my shot, I pulled Saphira a little further ahead, satisfied with the vehicle-free composition in the viewfinder…
…but the persistent driver pulled up right next to Saphira, so I rolled down the window. Turns out, it was a security guard who wanted to make me aware that there were no photos allowed inside the cemetery, wielding some strange excuse about owls nesting in the area that were not to be disturbed by tourists. Since I had now evoked the wrath of, or at least had the attention of, the security guard, I did the only thing that made sense: I was honest with him.
“Could you please tell us where to find the grave of Howard Phillips Lovecraft?” I queried. He stared at me for a moment and then said, “Follow me.” What followed was a dizzying course of turns and twists through what seemed like miles of gravestones. When the guard finally pulled over, he stepped out to remain with us as we paid our respects, and true to his word, he’d taken us directly to Lovecraft’s resting place.
We chatted with the security guard for several minutes, and he mentioned how he’s met more people from around the world than he ever would otherwise, due to the international fame that Lovecraft has been elevated to in the past several decades. People from Europe, Asia, and the Southern Hemisphere all came to complete the same quest as I. After a short while, he left us there among the 60,000-some graves in Swan Point.
Lovecraft’s headstone, and family gravestone, were pretty ordinary. The only thing that differed from other family plots was the worn patch of ground where countless travelers stopped to pay homage to the “Father of Weird Fiction and Son of Providence.” Lexie waited with Saphira while I just sat at the Lovecraft family grave…and breathed, for what seemed like minutes but ended up being almost a half hour.
I’m not sure if the solace I was experiencing came from sense of a satisfaction that we had completed the Providence walking tour of my favorite author or because I’d reached a sense of closure regarding our WWOOFing adventure. Regardless, I didn’t besmirch the universe’s kindness by taking a picture of Lovecraft’s grave after the security guard had serendipitously led us directly to it.
After having my moment of clarity, we moved on, driving to Boston, and our new Airbnb host for the evening. Settling into the bedroom, I spent Wednesday evening looking over my notes for our next leg of trip: a tour of coastal New England towns where Lovecraft’s stories took place…and yet so much more.
Love,
Tony
Growing Greener Pastures 