Caught the 9:35 bus to Providence. It was a nice, new, comfortable, air-conditioned bus. Didn't take long to reach the outskirts of Providence, but instead of taking us downtown as we had expected, it took us to a terminal out in the boonies. They had a free shuttle bus to downtown, but it didn't run until 11:00, so the morning was nearly gone by the time we got to downtown Providence.
Walked up the hill to the state Capitol, which is a large, domed building, quite similar in appearance to the national Capitol. After climbing a few thousand steps to what we thought was the front entrance, we discovered the doors were locked and we had to go around to the "back" of the building, which is being used as the "front", because it's at street level and cars can drive up to the entrance. The Governor's limousine was parked in the driveway. We knew it was the Governor's, because it had license plate #1 and it said, "Governor". The State Treasurer was in a car behind the Governor's.
He wanted to go through the driveway but couldn't, because there was no room to go around the Governor's car. Apparently, the Treasurer knew more about counting money than he did about driving cars, because he was afraid he'd scrape the wall if he backed up, so he asked Roy and me to guide him. We did so, and after a struggle, he managed to back out of the driveway without scratching his paint. If Roy and I hadn't come along, I guess he'd still be sitting there.
We went inside and asked the guard where the Bureau of Vital Statistics was. He told us it was in a white building with long, narrow windows directly in back of the brick building across the street. He told us to go through the lobby of the brick building and out the other side.
We were curious as to whose statue was standing on top of the dome, so we asked the guard. He told us they had planned on putting Roger Williams' statue up there, but no one knew what Roger Williams looked like, so they just put an anonymous statue up there with a spear in his hand, and it's been standing there ever since.
We walked over to the brick building across the street, but didn't see any way to get out the other side, so we went back outside and around. Didn't have any further trouble finding the white building, but when we got to the Bureau of Vital Statistics, the door was locked and no one answered our knock. We asked a clerk in another office, and she said Vital Statistics is closed to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Here we go again! She told us to phone them and that the phone number was on the door, but we couldn't find a phone number, so we kept knocking. Finally, a woman opened another door and asked us what we wanted. When we told her, she suggested we go to the City Hall in Providence, so we walked down there.
Found the city's Vital Statistics office in the basement, but they wanted $12 for a certified copy of the death certificate. I told her we just wanted the date of death; we didn't want a death certificate. But she said she couldn't start looking without the $12, and further-
more, we had to be a member of the family or have the written permission of a member of the family.
I phoned the Rhode Island Historical Society Library. The woman I talked with was very nice. She said she'd look it up and for me to call back at two o'clock.
By then, it was lunch time, so Roy and I went to a deli and had some really good sandwiches at reasonable prices. Then we took a bus out to Swan Point Cemetery, which is where we should have gone in the first place. I had told Roy how beautiful the grounds are at Swan Point Cemetery and Butler Hospital, but he probably didn't quite believe me until he saw them for himself. They are like lovely parks: towering trees, green grass, flowers. Roy was really impressed. The bus took us right past Butler Hospital and let us off near the entrance to Swan Point Cemetery.
The people in the cemetery office were very nice. They looked up Aunty Margarethe's gravesite without a moment's hesitation and showed us on a map exactly where it was. I was amazed to learn that Aunty Margarethe died June 22, 1962! I had thought she died around 1955. If she didn't die until 1962, then she was still alive when her houses on Nantucket were demolished. I hope she didn't know about it.
Her grave was in the Carrington plot. The Carringtons were very wealthy and socially prominent ship owners in the 19th century, but their line has died out. The man who started the family fortune was Edward Carrington. Apparently, his sons and grandsons were also named Edward. Every male Carrington on the gravestones was named Edward, with no 2nd or 3rd after their names. It was very confusing. Aunty Margarethe's grandfather was Edward Carrington, and her uncle was also Edward Carrington. Her great-grandfather was the original Edward Carrington. If anyone yelled, "Edward!" in that household, it must have been chaos. Her mother was born a Carrington, but she married a struggling young doctor, Gameliel Dwight. Aunty Margarethe was born November 8, 1871, in Berlin, Germany, where her father was attending medical school. At that time, Germany had the best medical schools in the world.
I don't know how old Aunty Margarethe was when her father died, but she must have still been a child, because she mentioned once that she grew up in the Carrington house. Later, her mother married General Ames, or maybe it was General Ames' son. Anyway, the Ames were also wealthy and socially prominent. I'm not sure what the relationship was to the Dorrs, but Aunty Margarethe ended up inheriting the Dorr Mansion as well as the Carrington House. She had no siblings and never married, so she was the last of several lines.
So there I was at Aunty Margarethe's grave, 32 years too late. We stayed there a while and then took the bus back downtown. I phoned the Historical Society Library as agreed, but they hadn't found the date of death.
We went up to the fifth floor of the City Hall and found the office where probate records are kept. Had no problem finding Aunty Margarethe's will and guardianship papers. It seems so strange that Vital Statistics made such a big deal out of just telling us the date of death, while probate let us look at all these records without batting an eye.
Aunty Margarethe's will was written in 1917, long before I was born. It left her share of the Carrington House to the Rhode Island School of Design to be preserved as a memorial. She also left $25,000 to the School of Design for upkeep of the house. All the rest of her estate was left to her uncle, Edward Carrington. No mention was made of the Dorr Mansion or the houses in Nantucket, and no other heirs were mentioned. In 1955, a codicil was written, giving a piece of property in Providence to some people I'd never heard of. Strangely, there were no bequests to any charities. Since her uncle died long before she did, the probate court tracked down a lot of "cousins" who were scattered all over the country. I had never heard of any of them. Her maternal cousins received $6600 apiece, and her paternal cousins $4400. The Maurans apparently took over the Dorr Mansion while Aunty Margarethe was still alive.
Her death certificate showed cause of death as "acute myocardial infarction", but I know what she really died of. She died of a broken heart, and I'm the one who caused it. Aunty Margarethe loved me dearly and did everything under the sun for me. She dumped opportunity after opportunity in my lap, and I threw them all away. I loved her, too, but I was too young and ignorant. I didn't know what I was doing.
Unfortunately, the office closed at four o'clock, so I didn't have time to go through all the guardianship papers. I surmise that after Aunty Margarethe was placed in Butler Hospital, which is a private psychiatric hospital, and her estate was placed in the hands of a trustee, that the trustee sold the Nantucket property to Mrs. Elphinstone, who promptly tore down the houses that blocked her precious view. That would have been in 1957 or 1958. At that time, I wouldn't have been able to buy the houses even if I had known they were for sale.
Roy and I next went to the public library and looked up the newspaper article about Aunty Margarethe's death. It was on microfilm, of course. We had a copy printed to take with us.
We walked around a while and ate some ice cream. Then we returned to New Bedford.
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