privately his parents agreed that it seemed unlikely he would ever become a great one.
There was no danger of their second child and eldest daughter,Rosalie, following her father and brother onto the stage. Quiet and gentle, Rosalie was so reserved that she rarely spoke, and then only in whispers. She was Mary Annâs silent, helpful shadow as she went about her chores on The Farm, tending the garden, watching over the younger children. Though Mary Ann never spoke of it to Junius, she suspected that Rosalie had become profoundly withdrawn as a protective measure after suffering the loss of four younger siblings to terrible illnesses. Mary Ann understood her melancholia all too well.
Yet even after suffering such unspeakable losses, Mary Annâs broken heart had remained strong enough to welcome another child into the family. Junius had been on tour in mid-November 1833 when she had gone into labor on a night the heavens had put on a spectacular display of shooting stars. One had exploded with an earsplitting crack in the sky above Baltimore, lighting up the clouds like dawn and searing the sky with a trailing stream of fire. Bright ribbons of light still illuminated the darkness when Mary Annâs son was bornâsafely, in perfect health, but with a transparent membrane swathed around his face. Shakespeare had referred to the marvel as âfortuneâs star,â Mary Ann remembered, and Ann Hall and the other servants had declared that it meant that the boy was destined for greatness. Mary Ann had carefully preserved the caul, certain that the heavenly fireworks affirmed that her babyâunusually quiet and alert, his features resembling his fatherâsâwas destined for a special fate. From Philadelphia, Junius had chimed in his agreement, adding that he wanted the boy to be named after his two best and most loyal friends, the actors Edwin Forrest and Thomas Flynn, and so the newborn was called Edwin Thomas.
A sister had followed almost exactly two years later, and from New York Junius wrote, âCall the little one Asia in remembrance of that country where God first walked with man.â Little Asia Sydney grew into a lovely, dark-eyed, and watchful child, and it seemed to Mary Ann that she marked everything done and every word spoken around her, even before she was capable of speech herself.
Two and a half years later, John Wilkes was born, and two years after that, Mary Ann was delivered of another son, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and quiet like his eldest sister, Rosalie. Mary Ann wanted to name him after his grandfather Richard, who had passed away less than twomonths before, but that name had already gone to another, so she chose Joseph instead.
Junius and Mary Ann agreed that each precious child was a miracle, but Junius struggled to support his many dependents on wages that swiftly vanished into drink and bad investment schemes if Mary Ann could not collect them first. Summoning up the skills she had honed years before peddling flowers in Londonâs Covent Garden, she began selling the produce of The Farm in the markets of Baltimore. Throughout the summer and autumn, she would load a cart with apples, potatoes, peaches, squash, whatever her garden had yielded that week, and drive twenty-five miles to Baltimore, where she would set up a stall in the Lexington Market and sell fruits and vegetables as she had once sold roses and bouquets.
Perhaps because Junius worried about Mary Ann making frequent trips to the city markets alone or with only Joe Hallâthe former slave whom Junius had purchased, freed, and hired to run The Farm soon after their arrival in 1822âJunius decided that the family should move to Baltimore.
In summer, when deadly cholera and typhoid swept through the city, they escaped to the cool, healthful wilderness of The Farm, but from autumn through spring, they resided in a modest but charming brick row house on North High Street. Their neighborhood on the east