E.E. Orcutt

Eliza Eastin Orcutt, 1879

Searchers of oldest records find
Something like windows for the mind.
Yet all they learn of ages past,
From fossil pages first and last,
Teaches that much remains unknown,
Unseen, save by One eye alone.
The widest vision ever given
To mortals here below from heaven,
Is just sufficient to discern
There’s everywhere much more to learn;
And humility is the grace
That beams upon the wisest face.
–E.E. Orcutt

Eliza Eastin Gray was born 20 February 1825 in Vermont. Her father was Dr. Joseph Gray (9 February 1788-9 February 1879). He was born in Nottingham West, New Hampshire, but moved with his family to Mason NH when he was two. Joseph was the fourth of nine children born to Joseph Gray and Lucy Bancroft (who married in 1780). At age 18, he began his medical studies and eventually earned his M.D.  On 11 July 1811 he married Eunice Russell. The Grays had one son, Joseph, and four daughters, Pamela Fray, Lucretia Maria, Lydia Emerson, and Eliza Eastin.

I haven’t been able to find out a whole lot about Eliza E. Gray. She married Heman Chandler Orcutt in Vermont on 1 January 1852. While her husband was off fighting in the Civil War, she managed the household, which included the farm and her two young sons, John Heman and Charles Russell. Her sister Lydia moved in to help out, and her father-in-law did what he could, giving her maple sugar and the like from his farm. Eliza’s means were modest and she relied on her husband to send what little money he could. She would take the boys out for a walk using a borrowed pram. She was deeply religious and wrote often to Heman, profusely expressing her love and longing for him in her letters.

Eliza liked to write poems and successfully submitted them to various literary magazines. After the family moved to San Diego in 1879, Eliza wrote poems for her son Charles’ magazine, The West American Scientist. The poem above was her first published in that periodical, in June 1885. She was not credited as its author until the index was complied later. Many of her earlier poems were signed simply “E.E.” Often the poems were written specifically for The West American Scientist and so the objects of her inspiration were not always the usual poetic fare:

Algae

O, these delicate ocean gifts,
These Children of the sea,
That sleep among the dashing waves,
As beautiful and free.

When cast upon the sandy beach,
We gather them with care,
Admire their beauty and their grace,
And hidden glories rare.

But their own secrets long they kept,
Of Nature’s wondrous ways;
Their fruit unknown ’till science came,
With microscopic gaze.

Algae, breath of the bounding sea,
Refreshment find we here,
To charm the heart and please the eye,
Enlarging beauty’s sphere.

Nor blooms a spray on sea or land,
With glowing life and fair,
But gives a hint that we may trust
Its Author’s loving care.

E.E. Orcutt died on 28 June 1909 in San Diego at age 84.