June 20 1915
Lincoln Nebraska State Journal, Lincoln, Nebraska, Sunday, June 20, 1915
GLORIES IN HIS WIFE'S ACT
Minnesota Professor Deplores Death, But Calls It Heroic.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 19.—In a statement tonight Edmund T. Dana, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, described the suicide of his young wife by drowning at Nantucket Thursday as a “tremendously tragic, but beautiful end.”
“Mrs. Dana,” her husband said, “had always held the stoical idea that it is more dignified to die of one's own will than to leave the hour and manner to circumstances. Personally, I am glad it was an act of my wife's own choosing and not a horrible accident, though it was a pathetic mistake that made her feel the world would be better without her.”
Continuing Mr. Dana explained that his wife's health became run down after the birth of her child.
“She believed she never would be able to take care of the baby properly,” he said, “and would handicap her husband in his life work. Her artistic sense made her feel that a thing should be perfect or not at all.”
Mrs. Dana was the daughter of Henry Holliday, a wealthy steel manufacturer of Wales. Her husband is a grandson of Longfellow, the poet.
July 21 1915
Boston Evening Transcript, Boston, Massachusetts, Wednesday, July 21, 1915
MRS. RICHARD H. DANA DEAD
Wife of Boston Lawyer, Resident of Cambridge, Was a Daughter of the Poet Henry W. Longfellow
Edith Longfellow Dana, wife of Richard Henry Dana, the Boston lawyer, who resides in Brattle street, Cambridge, died today in the historic old town of Lancaster. She was a daughter of the poet, Henry W. Longfellow, and her mother was his second wife, Frances Elisabeth Appleton, who in 1861 met with an accident in which she was so severely burned that she died from the effects of her injuries. Mrs. Dana was one of the three daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow, of whom the poet wrote in his poem: “The Childrens Hour,” as follows:
From my study I see the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice and laughing Allegra
And Edith with golden hair.
Mrs. Dana's sisters who by these lines became so widely known are Miss Alice Longfellow, who still resides in her father's historic home, Craigie House, Cambridge, and Mrs. James G. Thorpe, formerly Annie Allegra Longfellow, whose home adjoins that of the Dana family in Cambridge.
Mrs. Dana had been in ill-health for some time, and last fall underwent a surgical operation from which she had not recovered. She was married Jan. 10, 1878, to Richard Henry Dana, who, like herself, came of notable ancestry, and ever since their marriage they have lived in Cambridge, with a summer residence for many years at Manchester-by-the-Sea, where their place overlooks what is known as Dana's Beach.
In addition to her husband and her sisters, Miss Longfellow and Mrs. Thorpe, Mrs. Dana is survived by four sons and two daughters, as follows: Richard Henry Dana, Jr., of New York, Harvard 1901, who married Miss Ethel N. Smith; Henry W. Longfellow Dana, Harvard 1903, Cambridge; Allston Dana, Harvard 1906, who married Miss Dorothy H. Goodale and who now lives in White Plains, N. Y., and Edmund Trowbridge Dana, who married Miss Jessie Holliday of England (whose death by drowning was a recent occurrence), and the two daughters are Mrs. Henry C. De Rham, 2d, of New York, who formerly was Miss Frances A. Dana, and Mrs. Robert H. Hutchinson of Philadelphia, who before her marriage was Miss Delia F. Dana.
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow, the New York architect, formerly of Boston, is a brother of Mrs. Dana. Another brother, Charles Appleton Longfellow, was a soldier in the Civil War and lost his life in his services for his country.
