She spent the remaining 12 years of her life there, mostly unresponsive, staring at a photograph she kept in her room. According to asylum records, it was a portrait of her two daughters in white dresses holding hands. The photograph Helen was now examining. Robert Davies sold the Beacon Street house in September 1895.
He moved to New York and tried to rebuild his life. He remarried in 1899, but the marriage was short-lived. His second wife left him, citing his obsession with the dead. Robert died in 1904, age 49, of heart failure. His obituary mentioned his first family only briefly, preceded in death by his daughters, Lily and Rose, and his first wife, Ellaner.
But the photograph’s journey didn’t end there. Helen traced its ownership through the decades. After Elellanar’s death in 1907, her few possessions were sent to her sister Margaret Hartwell, who had been estranged from Eleanor during her lifetime. Margaret took one look at the photograph and understood immediately what it showed.
She wrote in her diary. Ellaner kept this photograph in her room at the asylum for 12 years. She would stare at it for hours, whispering to her girls. I understand why now. Lily is alive in this image, but Rose is already gone. Eleanor was looking at the moment between the moment when she still had one daughter left, trying to pretend she had both.
It’s the crulest kind of comfort. I cannot keep it. It’s too painful, but I cannot destroy it either. It’s all that remains of those poor children. Margaret stored the photograph in a trunk where it remained for 50 years until her death in 1957. Her daughter Catherine inherited it and kept it hidden, never showing it to anyone.
Catherine died in 1998, and the photograph passed to her son, James Hartwell, age 73. James was the one who finally sent it to the historical society in 2021. Helen managed to track him down through genealogical records and called him. I’m 94 years old. James told her, his voice weak, but clear.
My mother told me about that photograph when I was young. She said it was cursed, not by magic, but by love. She said it showed what love looks like when it refuses to let go. Even when letting go is the only mercy left. I’ve carried that photograph for 23 years since my mother’s death. I’m dying now. Cancer.
I don’t want my children to inherit this burden. Let history have it. Let someone else remember those girls. He died two weeks after sending the photograph. His obituary made no mention of the Davy’s sisters or the photograph. Dr. Helen Foster presented her findings to the Boston Historical Society’s board in April 2021. The response was divided.
Some members felt the photograph should be displayed as an important historical artifact illustrating Victorian attitudes toward death and childhood. Others argued it was too disturbing, too private, too painful to share publicly. Helen advocated for a middle path. Preserve it, document it, but restrict access. Make it available to researchers, but not as a casual exhibit.
Respect the tragic history it represented. The board agreed. The photograph was cataloged, digitally preserved, and placed in the society’s restricted archives. A detailed historical file was created documenting everything Helen had discovered about the Davies family. But Helen couldn’t stop thinking about one detail, the hidden inscription.
I promised Mama I would hold her hand forever. What promise had Lily made? And when Helen returned to the medical records and found something she’d missed initially, Rose Davies had been sick for 3 weeks before she died. During that time, according to Dr. Morrison’s notes, Lily had refused to leave her sister’s bedside.
In a note dated May 28th, 1895, 6 days before Rose’s death, Dr. Morrison wrote, “Elder sister Lily has contracted scarlet fever, but insists on remaining with younger sister Rose despite risk of worsening her own condition. When I attempted to separate them, Lily became hysterical. She claims she promised Mama she would hold Rose’s hand until everything is better. Mrs.
