
Although she was a prominent nineteenth-century Washington
socialite and fine photographer, Clover Adams is known today largely because of
her unique grave marker. The wife of a noted
historian and scion of a great American political family, she committed suicide
in 1885.
The monument that marks her burial site was designed by the sculptor
Augustus Saint-Gaudens and commissioned by her husband, Henry Adams. The large
enshrouded bronze is located in Rock Creek Cemetery, and is arguably the most
noted individual sculpture in the nation’s capital.
Distraught over his wife’s death, Adams could not bring himself
to mention her in his important autobiography, “The Education of Henry
Adams.” He also is buried there.
Saint-Gaudens was the pre-eminent sculptor of his time. In addition to the Adams Memorial, also known
as “Grief,” he is remembered for the famous Robert Gould Shaw Memorial,
celebrating the Massachusetts 54th regiment of the Civil War, and
the design of a twenty-dollar gold coin, which many consider to be the finest
American numismatic piece.
Another famous person associated with the Adams Memorial is
Stanford White, the New York architect, who designed the granite plot.
Probably overlooked by most tourists—it certainly is off the
beaten path and is actually a little challenging to find—“Grief” is art at its
finest: beautiful, evocative and
thought-provoking.
For years, Eleanor
Roosevelt would visit the memorial as a source of solace for the travails of
her life.
Clover and Henry Adams and their friends Clara and John Hay
and geologist Clarence King all lived together in a large, combined house,
which is now the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C. There is a legend that Clover Adams roams the
halls of the hotel today.
An excellent book on the Adamses and their housemates is
told by Patricia O’Toole in The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry
Adams and His Friends, 1880-1918.
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