Month: January 2021

A pleasant distraction during this covid pandemic, has been reading the European honeymoon diary of our great-grandparents. Their diary was passed down over the generations, first to their daughter, Mrs. Clementine Welling, then to her daughter, Miss Elizabeth Dixon Welling and then given to me.

The diary, comprised of four leather bound notebooks, began October 10, 1840, shortly after their wedding. Three of the volumes, in the hand of our great grandmother; Elizabeth L. C. Dixon, in which she described departure from New York City, journey across the Atlantic on the SS Great Western steamship, their travel adventures throughout England, France and Italy. The 4th volume of the diary, described the last days in Europe and return home, was written in the hand of our great grandfather, James Dixon, after his young wife, became too ill to write.

Below are images of a few of the pages of the diary. 

This European Honeymoon diary, was written five years before Elizabeth Dixon’s Washington diary in which she described life as a young mother and wife of a junior congressman in the Capitol during the Mexican War.

Mrs. Elizabeth Dixon was my great-great-grandmother.

I came upon her 1845-1847 diary in the course of archival research, and had been partially transcribed by my great aunt, who had sent an extract to Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s after she had started the White House Historical Association. I finished the entire 50 page diary and submitted the text to editor, William Seale, who published my transcription in Issue 33, White House History journal. This experience opened windows for me on the world of publishing, the interesting times in Washington, and not least at the White House.

Transcription of “Diary of Elizabeth Dixon -Washington 1845-47” is available online at:

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/introduction-to-the-transcription-of-the-washington-diary-of-elizabeth-l-c-dixon

Actually, my interest in archival research began when I discovered letters and family mementos which confirmed the close friendship between Elizabeth Dixon and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

Thus began my long journey of Lost + Found History.