By Gwen Fries, Adams Papers
This is your official warning—Valentine’s Day is just over two weeks away. Maybe you’re in charge of planning festivities; maybe you’re looking for a subtle way to remind the person who is in charge. Either way, read on.
If there’s one thing my time with the Adams Papers editorial project has taught me, it’s that the answers to all of life’s questions can be found within the collection. Since the project contains three central power couples—John and Abigail, John Quincy and Louisa Catherine, and Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks—I knew the outline of a perfect Valentine’s Day date was scattered across those quarter of a million manuscript pages.
John and Abigail liked nothing more than to sit together by a crackling fire, languorously paging through the newest additions to their ever-growing private library. “I read my Eyes out, and cant read half enough neither,” John wrote to his like-minded wife on 28 Dec. 1794. “The more one reads the more one sees We have to read.” John and Abigail’s letters are full of quotes and beloved bon mots, and they would swap book recommendations, yearning to hear the other’s opinion. If you and your partner are all about that hygge lifestyle, swap books, get a fire roaring, put your feet up, and sink into a soft chair. Let others fight for those hard-to-get dinner reservations. (Bonus points if you indulge in another of John and Abigail’s favorite things: hot chocolate!)
John Quincy and Louisa Catherine shared an affection for music. Louisa was a harpist and singer, and John Quincy played the flute. John Quincy’s first impressions of Louisa were of her musical ability, as she always sang and played for him when he visited her family in London. “Memory often repeats to my Fancy, every strain which was once performed by you; it gives an Echo still returning to my ear, to every sound uttered by your voice, or called forth by your fingers,” John Quincy wrote to her on 6 March 1797. Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse to get dolled up and take the music lover in your life to a symphony, choral concert, or opera.
Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks were collectors by nature. Their free time was filled with antiques shopping, and Charles was a regular at auctions. Charles collected rare coins, and Abby was delighted by knick-knacks of all kinds. They enjoyed traveling together, taking in landscapes, wandering through art galleries, and tasting local cuisine. “My Wife went in to make her purchases at the shop, the usual tax for curiosity in travelling,” Charles Francis recorded in his diary on 19 July 1836. If you and your date are always up for a daytrip, why not spend your Valentine’s Day as tourists, exploring boutiques and gift shops somewhere new?
It doesn’t matter how you celebrate this February 14th so long as you spend the day with your Dearest Friend.
The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society gratefully acknowledges the generous support of our sponsors. Major funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Packard Humanities Institute. The Florence Gould Foundation and a number of private donors also contribute critical support. All Adams Papers volumes are published by Harvard University Press.