George Keats in America

[BrokenLyre]

Forgive me if this has been posted before: While reading Denise Gigante's book, The Keats Brothers, I noticed that Gigante mentioned that she met with Lawrence M. Crutcher while doing research on her book. He is a descendant of George Keats who lived in Louisville, Kentucky, but I think now lives in San Francisco, California. She mentioned that Lawrence Crutcher wrote a book in 2009 on his family's descendants. That was incredibly exciting to me as I have been looking for years to find information on the descendants of George. And here Gigante was telling me where to find all the information available. So here it is in case you were wondering:

The Keats Family by Lawrence M. Crutcher. Published by Butler Books, PO Box, 7311, Louisville, Kentucky 40207. Published in 2009. I bought the book and it came within 4 days. Just unbelievable to see the whole family tree. 330+ pages, Extremely well researched. 569 descendants from George. Includes detailed Timelines from 1730 onwards. Bibliographies on John, and other family members. Lists Descendants by Family. Many many illustrations and pictures. Lists Family Namings. Lists all Countries of Origin for everybody who married into the Keats family etc... List all Keats Family Writers (9 of them), Lists Journalists (7 of them), even lists all 37 famous schools that the descendants went to and who attended, and much more.

Anyway, hope you get a chance to get a copy. Amazing reading if you don't mind trivia.
Go to http://www.butlerbooks.com/books/keatsfamily.html if interested.

[Cath]

Wow! Thanks for the heads-up BrokenLyre - the book sounds fascinating.

[Cybele]

Good heavens, Broken Lyre! It never occurred to me to look for Crutcher's book. (Duh!) Thanks so much for the link. For some reason, I assumed that this was one of those family genealogies that only interest members of that particular family.

The name "Crutcher" sounded familiar, so I looked back over my photos from the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, and sure enough, there was the Crutcher family plot marker with a bas relief carving of the Sosobios vase.
(And, I might add, it was Broken Lyre who suggested I stop for a map at the entrance to the cemetery -- I would have wandered around forever with out that map.)



In the photo, George & Georgiana's graves are in the foreground, the Crutcher family marker is behind.

[BrokenLyre]

Yes Cath - it is exciting for me to see all that information on George's descendants. Of all his hundreds of progeny, only ONE was named "John Keats" - John Keats Hull. He was born in 1923 and died in 1943 in a training accident in the military. How sad that like his namesake, he died so very young....

Wow Cybele - thanks for the reminder on Cave Hill cemetery. When I was there 2 1/2 years ago I didn't even know about the Crutcher family...how foolish of me - I should have done some research... Thanks for the info.

Maybe a few of us "Keatsians" should get together in Louisville this summer. I would enjoy seeing such a get together from this forum in Louisville.

[Cybele]

I think I might be able to swing this .
(My husband is sympathetic, but bewildered. -- I don't know if I could gain his cooperation a third time. I would be willing to go to L'ville. However, I would like the temperature to be less than it was when we there the last time. I was genuinely worried that my flip-flops would melt in the parking lot at the Filson Club.)

Ennis, are you in? Who else from the eastern US might be interested?

[Ennis]

I think I might be able to swing this .
(My husband is sympathetic, but bewildered. -- I don't know if I could gain his cooperation a third time. I would be willing to go to L'ville. However, I would like the temperature to be less than it was when we there the last time. I was genuinely worried that my flip-flops would melt in the parking lot at the Filson Club.)

Ennis, are you in? Who else from the eastern US might be interested?

I am most definitely interested in this. I'm in Asheville, NC, and Louisville would work. Set a date (far-enough advance) and let me know. My husband is mostly unsympathetic and completely bewildered: "I know Keats means the world to you, but he doesn't mean shit to me." And this from the man who accompanied me 9 out of the 11 times I saw "Bright Star". Perhaps his BS in Psychology is the reason! ). I'll have to "prepare" him! We also care for our grandson and haul his driver's-unlicensed mother back and forth to work, so he'll need to make some type of arrangement for that. But, despite what he says, I'll be there. My closest "convert" to Keats is my brother, John, so I hope it's okay to convince him to accompany me (He was willing to be my companion on my 2009 pilgrimage to London and, oh God, that most depressing visit to to Rome.)

Oh, while I'm thinking about that trip to London: I had read in an earlier post on a different thread that in 2003 the Keats's House was completely restored to how it looked when Keats lived there. I don't believe that date is correct. When John and I were there in early July of 2009, the work on the house had barely started (and surely complete renovations would not be funded just 5/6 years apart). One of the workmen we talked with (the curator was not there) said the renovations began about six weeks ago. I mentioned how it first was to reopen in October of 2008, then changed to the spring of 2009. His response was something to the effect of was "Well, you know how the government is about all their red-tape when it comes to giving money away." Of course, being a citizen of the good ol' USA, I know how true that was (and is)!!" He said they'd really have to push it to the July 24 (or was it the 25th?) re-re-opening date. Mind you, that was a mere 10 days after our departure from London! Boy, that's some "luck of the Irish" . . . . Perhaps 2003 was the date the amount of money from that "Magic Casements" fund to renovate The House was announced. I don't know; all I do know is that it sure wasn't completed when my brother and I were there. But, heck, that gives me another very good reason to go back. Also the renovations to #26 Piazza di Spagna are completed as well (according to my most recent Keats-Shelley Review that is published twice a year by the K-S Foundation). Another reason to go back!!

Another comment on those renovations: if the real intention was to put The House back to how it most likely appeared while Keats lived there then that damn Chester Room addition should have been completely demolished and the Brown-Keats door replaced. It was removed when the Chester Room was added. I e-mailed The House about this matter, and the response from Holly, the "communications" person, was that "they wanted to retain the integrity of the house." I smell a stink of contradiction there in the objective(s) of the renovation! As a matter of fact, if you can find before and after floor plans, you'll notice quite a few changes. By the way, the front door was the Dilke and then the Brawne entrance.

[BrokenLyre]

Cybele and Ennis - Wow... you would really go? That would be great. I love the phrase "sympathetic and bewildered" My wife is somewhat sympathetic and bewildered! She saw "Bright Star" once with me. She'd watch it again with me, probably in a few months....I saw it 9 times and I own two copies. Ennis - your husband deserves MANY kudos if he saw the movie 9 times with you! Why would he go with you 9 times if Keats doesn't mean anything to him???? Amazing, truly. He deserves a Big Brassy medal! And he must really love you.

Both of you can tell your husbands that I, as a man, also love (and know a great deal about) music, football, baseball, cars, electronics, explosions, dirt, rocks, war movies, the military, Mixed Martial Arts and other "manly things," like having worked on drilling rigs etc... Then they would be "bewildered"

At any rate, I will look into some options in Kentucky. I just think it would be great to get some Keatsians together for a day or so in Louisville. If I win the lottery I will fly everybody to Hampstead...but in lieu of that happening, I'll look into Kentucky.

[Ennis]

Oh, BrokenLyre, please do look into it!! The more Keatsians we can muster, the better -- and the more fun!
You know, I had often wondered why Jim (my husband) went with me so many times to see "Bright Star," and when I finally asked him, his response was "it was a lot better than I thought it would be and it was pretty interesting since I knew so much of Keats's biography (I'm still not sure if the latter comment was a compliment or some veiled criticism of my obsession with "a dead poet") and how much you liked that "Ode to a Nightingale," besides that actress who played Fanny Brawne nice to watch and that Keats actor was pretty good, too." But, all in all, he is a good man: he has hung pictures on the wall(s) of my Keats shrine, and when I was running out of shelf space, he actually went to the trouble of locating and then bought an old bookshelf #2 for my expanding Keats library.

[Raphael]

Interesting book. Hope you folks get to do your meet up. Your husband is a secret Keats fan if you ask me Ennis.

[Cybele]

Someone asked me how I talked my husband into participating in my Keats quests, I answered in two words: Eurasian Wigeon . (This involved a poor, little, duck-ish bird with a worse sense of direction than I have, who got itself lost in northeast Ohio.) Actually, I should have used a few more words like Peak Warbler Migration Season (off to the Lake Erie marshes in northwest Ohio several times) and Wild Goose Chase (Literally! You see, there was this snow goose, been banded in Churchill, Manitoba, that he spotted in Chincotegue, Virginia and. . .)

My spouse is a birder and he has dragged my myopic person (this is not a hobby for the extremely nearsighted) far and wide. It's simple payback.

BTW, I counted myself lucky that my husband went with me to see Bright Star twice.

Seriously though, the guy is a history nut and he loved walking around Cave Hill Cemetery.

[BrokenLyre]

Thank you Ennis and Cybele for the quick replies! Nice to hear from you too Raphael! I was fascinated by the whole "spousal interest" thing - so thanks for explaining it. Now it makes more sense. My wife reminded me tonight that she actually saw Bright Star TWICE with me - and she'd go again but maybe that's all. I too have a room dedicated to Keats stuff - pictures, quotes, the 1816 replica of his face, etc...and my kids just accept Keats as part of the family.

I will play with the idea of going to Louisville this summer, and see if it is feasible. And then get back to the forum. Thanks for the interest.

[MrsRsCat]

Aaaargh, Ennis ... the Chester Room. I agree. Quite horrible and throws the whole building off balance. I never put it into my images (ahem, on sale in Keats House - quick advert there) BUT have to say given the tiny size of the building and the number of events held there it is a sort of necessary evil.
At least they dismantled that rickety greenhouse that was tacked on to the back.

[Saturn]

I think to be honest we are lucky the building survives at all and it will never be 'restored' to exactly to how it was when Keats lived there, and a building that is a private home is not the sole dwelling of one person, it has its own history and integrity and every change or modification is an interesting piece of the building's history, quite apart from the fame or celebrity of any particular resident of a place. In the great history of the building Keats' occupancy is but a tiny part of it; a very famous and celebrated part, but a short one at that. It's like those archaeologists who wish to destroy all, evidence of later occupation and colonisation of Greece and it's archaeological remains, and only leave that part of antiquity that is 'untainited' by anything post classical.

[Ennis]

I think to be honest we are lucky the building survives at all and it will never be 'restored' to exactly to how it was when Keats lived there, and a building that is a private home is not the sole dwelling of one person, it has its own history and integrity and every change or modification is an interesting piece of the building's history, quite apart from the fame or celebrity of any particular resident of a place. In the great history of the building Keats' occupancy is but a tiny part of it; a very famous and celebrated part, but a short one at that. It's like those archaeologists who wish to destroy all, evidence of later occupation and colonisation of Greece and it's archaeological remains, and only leave that part of antiquity that is 'untainited' but anything post classical.

Saturn, that sounds like Holly's response; I''ll have to figure out how to forward her e-mail to the forum

[Saturn]

All tou need todois copy and paste it surely?