In Sacred and Loving Memory of
Rose Elizabeth Cleveland
Born in New York, USA
Author and Philanthropist
A Loyal Lover of Her Country
And A True Friend of Italy
She Died 22 Nov 1918, at Bagni di Lucca
Stricken By The Epidemic Spanish Fever Which,
With Her Band of Nurses, She Was Nobly
Combatting Among the Refugees Of The Great War
St. John, 13.15.
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Evangeline sits stoically next to Rose’s grave; her shoulders are laden as her fingers trace the cool marble of the shrine. She is at once alone and beyond her own thoughts. Memories come and go in succession- like a cine film flicking between moments – grainy, hazy but the emotions palpable. She a spectator and a participant in a story she wishes she could have directed.
1889
Some meetings begin in a twist of fate – an act of randomness that defies the explicable, but in this case, the meeting of Rose and Evangeline was almost an inevitability. The same elite social circle, the same love of literature, and perhaps more importantly, both newly relieved of duty. Rose, fresh out of the office of First Lady for her younger – allegedly rather randy brother, Grover Cleveland. Evangeline newly windowed from her considerably older and ostensibly richer husband. They were freer than most women of their time.
Whilst their meeting of place and location could hardly have been described as uncanny, their meeting of minds and mindsets was indeed aided by the happenstance of circumstance. That and the gentle seduction of the Florida, giving them both a virulent day time glow that would shimmer into dusk on the veranda as they talked of books and politics and all the topics in between. Later as darkness settled, under the canopy of white muslin that framed Evangeline’s bed, they would melt into desire. Later, as the first flushes of morning flitted through the sky, they would hold each other gently before Rose would don her dressing gown and skirt along the corridor to her own room. Where she belonged.
Rose, the outwardly more sensible of the Cleveland pairing, fell headlong into the heart and bed of Evangeline. Florida gave them the freedom to exist in a world that had yet to name them. They could barely find words for their love; how could they function on a world that refused to acknowledge their existence?
Done with high office and high expectations, Rose didn’t care. She was as sure of her heart as the surety of winter rain. Evangeline, despite the pull of her heart, was not so sure. She had worked hard for her reputation and knew the value that a man could bring to philanthropic life. She had money – a male counterpart would afford her validity. And of course, the taint of forbidden, unspeakable, unnameable love would destroy her reputation.
The years passed and the letters continued. Rose loved from afar – writing letters and waiting for responses. They would meet on occasion. Always in company under the guise of friendships. Though as night fell, they would fall into the easy rhythm of love and withheld passion. Still, Evangeline could not bring herself to succumb, marrying a pastor in the vain attempt to keep up appearances. Rose was heartbroken but love allowed her to let her caged bird fly. How could she wish anything other than the best from the soul mate she had found so long ago? Besides, love by force is no love at all. Even she knew that.
It had always been Rose who had shoved hard against the rigid walls of propriety, challenging the boundaries. She would have fought publicly, despite the consequences but Evangeline, bound by the roles society had crafted for her—wife, widow, woman of faith—would never have allowed it. She had restrained her own heart out of fear and uncertainty. Love even. Her caution a protection of sorts, not just for her own sanctity but for the safety of the ever-frivolous Rose.
The death of her pastor marked a change for the pair. Rose refused to walk away again – saying that she could barely breath without her lover of 20 years. Evangeline knew it to be true. They would move to Italy, there they could be free to love.
And they were for a time – throwing themselves into community life and loving each other in the sanctity of a village that embraced them. They set up an orphanage and threw themselves into the newfound sky.
But freedom seized too late came with a heavy price.
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1918
With a laboured sigh and tears lining the bottom her dark eye lids, she begins. Slowly at first, the pen trembling beneath the weight of her fingers. The last love letter in a lifetime told in epistolary. The final truth. Gradually, the words flow more easily. As if her grieving heart has accepted its flight into truth and the emancipation that will come with it.
“I think of you now, my love. Your letters give me much comfort in the darkness of this barren winter – it is sometimes even as if you are here beside me. I dream of you holding me as you once did. And momentarily we are back to our days in Egypt. The sun beating down on your skin. By God, you were translucent almost, one might have mistaken you for a mummy or a reincarnated pharaoh had it not been for the freckles blossoming on your nose.
But the light of dawn is harsh. The cruel glint of morning brings with it a truth I can barely acknowledge. Though I must. You deserve at least that my love.
It was I that caused so much of your anguish. My unwillingness. No, my cowardice. You were always so much braver than I, less concerned with the trappings of the social order. You understood this, so well, yet I harmed you by my stubborn affiliation to the acceptable. Silly really, now as I sit here talking to the mud. I wonder sometimes if you can here me. What would you say? Would you be glad of my newfound self-awareness or would I throw you into an angry mania for all of the wrong my prior lack of it caused you?
Whilst I’m here and truth seems to be the order of the day – is that what it does? This grief of mine? Makes me loose lipped and more want to unfurling feelings that have been so tightly bound. So, here is my love, though I suspect you already knew. Of course you did- you always saw right through me. It terrified me, actually. You. This desire of ours. The love. It was, is. I don’t know any more. It was like a fire, brandishing in its flames the propensity for the dark arts of sacrifice and the liquid of purification. How did you reconcile with such feelings, my love? For I know that you felt it as I but your heart was more ready to embrace what might become. Mine however, hardened perhaps, could not. Until it was too late. I am sorry Rose. I wish now that I had been braver. I led you to believe that we could not co-exist when I feared that we could too much. That I would sacrifice myself at your altar.
Loving Whipple, I mean caring for him as I did hurt you in a way I cannot forgive. I am sorry my love. So very sorry. The past eight years have been the lightest of my life. Finally, we were free. I was free. And now you are gone.
Now you are gone. My last act of freedom, I dedicate to you., my love. I could barely show you whilst we were alive but in death, whenever my times comes, I will be by your side. As I should always have been. It is no act of bravery but a compulsion. A deep desire to reconcile my heart with yours. Goodnight my sweet love. Until we meet again.”
She places the letter on top of the marble. Her eyes glazed and desolate, she turns towards the life she must lead alone- leaving her love behind her.
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In Loving Memory Of
Evangeline E. T. Whipple
Born in Canton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Wife of
The Right Reverend Henry B. Whipple
Bishop of Minnesota, U.S.A.
An Honorary Citizen of Bagni di Lucca
Devoted to All Good Works, Beloved by All Her Friends
Loyal and Unfaltering In Her Religious Faith
She Died 1 September 1930 in London, England
Blessed Are The Dead Which Die In The Lord From Henceforth, Yea, Saith the Spirit,
That They May Rest From Their Labors, And Their Works Do Follow Them. Rev. XIV 13.
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Between the headstones of a pair united in death, beneath the filagree of an acceptable narrative lies the truth. A story of an enduring love that has long outlived the life that had supressed it.
Inspired by
*https://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/aspectsofqueerexistence/aspectsofqueerexistencerosecle
- Dallee generated
- This is my own work and has not been generated in whole or in part by AI
- evangeline rose
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