Private disappointments

We have very few of Vaughan’s own letters. Her personal life must be interpreted from letters she received from others. But it is clear, Loft agrees, that Vaughan’s dreams did not always come true. She hoped, at first, to become a famous author, and developed a crisp, entertaining writing style. She hoped to attend college, but could only take a few local and correspondence courses. She applied for library jobs in Boston, New York and Chicago, but without luck. She read novels and romance magazines, loved socializing with young men, adored the movies, but preferred classical music to jazz.

Intelligent and precocious, Vaughan admired independent single women like Rosomund Thaxter of Kittery. She found her niche as a history researcher and used her vast knowledge of local fact and folklore to make her mark in Portsmouth society. She assisted famous architectural historians like John Mead Howells and William Sumner Appleton. But she worked mostly as a volunteer in the background and her big break did not come. As the Great Depression evolved into the Great War, like many Americans, Vaughan suffered from bouts of loneliness and depression. A prolific letter writer, she kept up a special correspondence with two soldiers.

Love letters uncovered

Gardner Hodgdon, four years her junior, had apparently proposed marriage while in Portsmouth but Vaughan turned him down. He enlisted in March of 1942 and was sent to Fort Bragg. He wrote to Vaughan from England later that year:

"Little did we realize last June when I kissed you goodbye at the South Station, that we might never meet again...that is why I came back that Friday night...Then anyway, by God's grace I'll come back and we can be together always. And I hope it will be soon, because I love you...The only thing I can hope is that you will forget the mean tricks that I played on you and remember the good times we had together".

What the "mean tricks" were, research has not revealed. The correspondence continued throughout WWII and Hodgdon penned this note from "Somewhere in Africa" in 1944:

"Was sitting here thinking of the first time I took notice of you--can see you now in that pink dress -- wide pink hat--cream gloves--and not forgetting those million dollar legs...Maybe some time soon we will be able to start over new and I can assure you Dot that it is going to be different. A fellow has lots of time in 22 months to think things over…Love me always my dear."

Vaughan meanwhile had met Lloyd Ashland who was serving at Camp Langdon at New Castle. Ashland was from Vermont and six years younger than Vaughan. The two, accompanied by Ashland’s best friend Phil, went on frequent excursions and he was definitely, according to Loft, "the love of her life." In a letter written in 1942, Ashland sympathized with her "situation" regarding a suitor, probably the persistent Hodgdon. He wrote:

"I know just how you feel…but don’t you think that a quick clean cut would be the best…I once read that in marriage if there was any doubt at all in either of the minds of the ones concerned that there should be no marriage."

Vaughan, meanwhile, had her heart set on Ashland, despite his weak attempts to "clarify the situation" and explain that he had no romantic designs. In a hand-written message penned towards the end of the war, he said:

"I understood perfectly when you gave me your love, I had realized, before then, how you felt, and it was causing me some anxiety because I know how unhappy one could be – one who loved and that love was not returned. I didn’t want you to be hurt, that is why I tried to tell you how I felt."

The message did not come through clearly. Now well into her 40s, Vaughan continued to carry a torch for Ashland, writing and visiting with him and his family after the war. The eight-year relationship ended suddenly when an unexpected invitation arrived. Ashland, the formal note said, would marry another woman on August 14, 1949. Vaughan and her family were invited to attend.

Like so many other scraps of paper that passed through her hands, Vaughan filed the wedding invitation among her souvenirs. It is now in the archives of the NH Historical Society. Although shocked and devastated by the news, Dorothy Vaughan quickly threw herself back into her work and back into the warm embrace of her beloved Portsmouth. As the 1950s dawned, her best years were yet to come, filled with the accolades and attention she longed for.

Copyright © 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved. A small portion of this article is excerpted from Robinson’s book "Strawbery Banke: A Seacoast Museum 400 Years in the Making" that includes much more on the life of Dorothy Vaughan. This article also appeared in the Portsmouth Herald, September 22, 2008.