Seacoast History Blog #59
August 6, 2009

Sometimes I feel like Levi Thaxter, who was driven to distraction by Celia Thaxter’s fame. Admittedly she’s not my wife, but she makes me crazy all the same. Everybody wants to connect with her. And they keep calling me. A decade ago I wrote about Celia on the web. That was before Sharon Stephan’s incredible exhibit and book "One Woman’s Work" that launched Celia’s comeback career as, not just a writer and gardner at the Isles of Shoals, but as an artist too. (Continued below)

But it’s my phone number on the bottom of the web page that people keep running off on their printer and giving to their maiden aunts and mothers.

"Hello, is this Seacoast?"

I get this call all the time. Why is it that people think that the noun "Seacoast" has it’s own phone number? Do I call up and say, "Hello, is this Gulf of Mexico?" Anyway, this is how the conversation usually starts. Inevitably the callers are older and have never used a computer. When I tell them I run a web site, having never seen one, they pause, then hammer on.

"I’m looking for Celia Thaxter," they say.

"She’s not in right now," I tell them. "She died in 1892."

The caller does not find that funny. Today’s caller was on a mission. She wanted a print of a picture by Celia Thaxter to hang on her wall, and wanted me to sell her one. If not, why was I advertising Celia on my web site?

Perhaps, I suggested, she might want to buy a print of Childe Haseem’s portrait of Celia in her garden. Yes, the caller said, how much? As I talked, I typed into a Google search box – art print, Celia Thaxter, Childe Hassem – figuring I could find this woman a gallery selling prints. There are tons of outlets for prints online. But if she was in Texas (which I deduced from her accent) and didn’t use a computer, that might be a futile source. The Google search pointed first to my own web site. Oh, brother!

In the end, what the caller really wanted was something painted by Celia herself. I suggested she look for Sharon’s book on Amazon.com since it has scores of photos. Or she might actually find a painted piece of crockery in Celia’s own hand on eBay. I tried, in vain, to then explain what Amazon and eBay are.

The second most common Celia call is from people who want to visit her restored Island Garden. You can get there on special days by signing up with the Shoals Marine Lab that takes daytrippers out to Appledore Island a few times each summer. It costs $50 for the round trip fare and $45 additional to take the guided tour.

People who call me always want me to get them there cheaper. They cannot accept my explanation that there is no other official way to tour the island, unless you sign up for a class at the Shoals Marine Lab and wander over to the garden in your spare time. Or you have to know someone who is going to Appledore and will bring you along as a guest. And worse, the tours are often sold out.

I explain that after Celia’s death, her cottage and the Appledore Hotel burned down. The place where thousands of tourists once visited is now run by a marine biology summer school. There really is no public access. The island is owned by the Star Island Corporation that leases it to Cornell University. But this is not what the caller wants to hear. She wants to see the flowers in the Island Garden, lovingly maintained by a group of local volunteers. And she wants to see them now.

"So why do you advertise the trip if it isn’t available?"

Again, I explain that I’m not selling Celia tours or art prints or antiques or anything. I’m just informing people about Celia, whose spirit still dominates the Isles of Shoals. And whose restless spirit continues to hand out my phone number as if it where her own.

© 2009 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved

For info on Celia Thaxter’s Garden click here 
For more on Childe Haseem click here 
For our Celia section click here