#aurelia plath

The “Sylvia Plath Calendar” - 90 years ago today: Otto Emil Plath married Aurelia Frances Schober on Monday, 4 January 1932 at the Ormsby County courthouse in a civil ceremony in Carson City, Nevada. From ‘Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath’ (1991) by Paul Alexander: “Drawn closer together by the letters they had exchanged that summer, Otto and Aurelia began dating when Aurelia returned to Boston in September to assume the Brookline High School faculty post she had been offered. Almost immediately, weekend hiking trips, afternoon strolls through the Arnold Arboretum, and nights at the theatre launched the couple into a serious romance. Before long, they openly discussed marriage. Finally, just after Christmas 1931, they left Boston by car and, chaperoned by Aurelia’s mother, drove cross-country to Carson City, Nevada, where on Monday, January 4, 1932, Otto filed for and received a divorce from Lydia Bartz, the woman he had not seen in over a decade. Later that same day, Otto Plath and Aurelia Schober, each of whom swore in writing to be a current resident of Reno, Nevada, were married in a civil ceremony in Carson City, at Ormsby County’s courthouse. Following a honeymoon in Nevada, the Plaths, still accompanied by Aurelia’s mother, drove back to Boston to begin their married life. Aurelia moved into Otto’s apartment, a six-room first-floor rental in a house at 24 Prince Street in Jamaica Plain. Before she could resume her teaching job at Brookline High, Otto insisted that she resign, which she did even though she was a successful teacher and probable future chairman of the German Department. Otto wanted Aurelia to become a full-time housewife, and he wished to start a family as soon as possible. In fact, they would become parents much sooner than even Otto had hoped: only weeks into the marriage Aurelia became pregnant (with Sylvia).” . If you want to learn more about Otto’s and Aurelia’s family histories, I can definitely recommend Alexander’s ‘Rough Magic’, as it provides many details. . . Photo: Sylvia Plath (9 months old) with her parents in July 1933 at the Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts (Mortimer Rare Book Room, Smith College, Northampton, MA, USA) #sylviaplath #onthisday https://www.instagram.com/p/CYUmECVL2tD/?utm_medium=tumblr

“And I am married to a poet. We came together in that church of the chimney sweeps with nothing but love & hope & our own selves: Ted in his old black corduroy jacket & me in mother’s gift of a pink knit dress. Pink rose & black tie. An empty church in watery yellow-gray light of rainy London. Outside, the crowd of thick-ankled tweed-coated mothers & pale, jabbering children waiting for the bus to take them on a church outing to the Zoo.

And here I am: Mrs. Hughes. And wife of a published poet.”

—fromThe Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, Cambridge Diary, Monday afternoon: February 25 1957

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Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes first met on 25 February 1956 at party in Cambridge, England. They married only four months later on 16 June 1956 at St George the Martyr, Holborn, Camden, London in honor of Bloomsday with Plath‘s mother Aurelia being the only wedding guest.
They have been married for six years and four months until Plath commited suicide on 11 February 1963.

Even though they have been separated for five months since September 1962, they never got a divorce.
Maybe today would have been their 65th anniversary, if they were alive and stayed together.

Picture: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes photographed by by Lettice Ramsey at Ramsey & Muspratt in Cambridge, England in 1956.

This picture is one of 10 Plath and Hughes had taken a few moths later in November 1956 as their official wedding photos.
They are wearing their actual  wedding attire and Plath wore a “pink knitted suit dress”.

They both ended up hating the photographs.

If you want to find out more on their wedding and the story of these wedding pictures, I highly recommend you to read Ann Kennedy Smith‘s blog post at https://akennedysmith.com/

Photo source:https://www.loftyimages.co.uk