Wife and Mother

Marriage certificate on white paper with black writing
Marriage certificate of John and Helen Ridgley, 1873 (HAMP 21127)

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A young Helen West Stewart and John Ridgley met while traveling abroad in Europe with their families in the spring of 1872. Their fathers were friends in Baltimore and had seen each other in Italy before Charles Ridgely’s tragic death of typhoid fever on March 29. After meeting again upon their return home to the United States that summer, it surely seemed that they were destined for each other. The couple began an earnest courtship by the following winter, and by spring Helen confided to her diary “I love him devotedly and if happiness is to be found on this Earth I shall find it with him.” The young couple were married September 11, 1873 at the Stewarts’ townhouse on Mount Vernon Place.

 
black and white photo of man and  woman
John Ridgely and Helen West Stewart Ridgely, c.1873

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John Ridgely became the fifth master of Hampton in 1872 following his father’s early death, yet his mother, Margaretta Sophia Howard Ridgely, maintained control of the estate. Helen worked hard to assist her mother-in-law with managing the people and the workload necessary to run such a large and complex household in addition to taking care of her own husband and children at their winter residence in the city. After Margaretta died in 1904, Captain John and Helen Stewart West Ridgely began residing at Hampton and were there year-round by 1906.

 
black and white photo of man, woman and child
Photographic print of Helen and her family, July 4, 1877 (HAMP 15745)

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This photograph depicts four generations of women: Helen W. S. Ridgely with her daughter Leonice, her mother, Leonice Josephine Stewart, and her grandmother, Leonice Josephine Samson Moulton, on the front steps of Cliffholme, the family’s country residence in the Green Spring Valley that Helen’s father, John Stewart, purchased in 1872. Between 1874 and 1887, Helen gave birth to eight children: Leonice Josephine (1874), Margaret Howard (1876), Helen Stewart (1877), Charles (1879), John Stewart (1881), John Jr. (1882), David Stewart (1884), and Julian White (1887). Charles and John Stewart both died from diphtheria in early fall 1882, when Helen was nine months pregnant with John, Jr.

 
black and white photo of woman and child
Photographic print of Helen Ridgely holding her first child, Leonice Josephine Ridgely, who was named for her mother and grandmother, 1875 (HAMP 20145)

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Helen Ridgely holds her first child, Leonice Josephine Ridgely, Helen wrote frequently about baby Leonice, worrying about the amount of time it takes her to cut her first tooth and expressing irritation when other babies in the neighborhood seemed to be more advanced than her daughter. She noted how good her husband is with the baby, writing in the summer of 1875 when Leonice is sick that “he is as tender over our little darling as a mother.” (Ridgely, 1875) In January of 1876, Helen gave birth to another girl that she and John name Margaretta Howard after his mother. Helen observed that Margaretta did not suffer from colic the way that Leonice did at the same age, and she continued to compare the two children, usually with Leonice falling short of Margaretta’s accomplishments. In a June 10, 1877 entry, Helen was brutally honest about her feelings for children, writing that

“I do not care for children in the way most mothers do…I love my baby at the breast…but I don’t care to wash and dress it and see its frail little body over laden with finery. After it is weaned, I become apparently indifferent to it – for I can never bring myself to give it what it cries for, even if I know that having it will do no immediate harm.”

Still, her periodic exasperation with her children did not prevent her from doing everything she could to see that they had every opportunity it was within her power to bestow. Though not easy to please, Helen gave each child all the benefits of their parents’ beliefs and station in society, education, regular attendance at church, Bible study, recreation, and travel.

 
newspaper article and photo of gold vase
Newspaper clipping, Baltimore Sun, September 12, 1923 (left)
Silver gilt vase 1923 (HAMP 17089) (right)

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Helen and John celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1923 with a very large party at Hampton. It was described in an articles for the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Magazine. The couple received numerous cards, telegrams, and presents including some of “vermeil,” silver plated with gold to honor their golden wedding.

 
black and white photo of woman
Photograph of Helen later in life, c.1923 (HAMP 15602)

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By the 1910s, Helen had an apartment on St. Paul Street to which she retreated when her asthma became a problem, especially in the winter. At Hampton, she and Capt. John lived on, continuing to try to stem the hemorrhage of money that the upkeep of an estate such as Hampton demanded, but it was a losing battle. Following years of declining health, Helen died at Hampton in April 1929 and shortly thereafter, electricity was finally installed in the mansion. John died in April 1938, the longest lived of any owner of the Hampton estate.

Last updated: July 27, 2021

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