Dear Editor:
Every 4th of July one is sure to hear on the radio a song or two by Stephen Foster. Since he is one of America’s most enduring composers, and since he was born on the 4th of July (in 1826 in Pennsylvania), it is fitting that he is part of our national celebration. He lived in Hoboken for nearly a year, in 1854, at 601 Bloomfield, where he composed the immortal Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair, a tune I whistle every time I walk past that house. Jane MacDowell, nicknamed Jennie, was his wife, who he married in 1850. Although a daughter, Marion, was born the first year, apparently it wasn’t a long honeymoon, because their move to Hoboken was an attempt at a fresh start of a troubled marriage. Part of that trouble was probably caused by Stephen’s drinking problem. Not the first (or last) great artist with that problem.
Their attempt at reconciliation was not successful, and they separated. Jane took Marion back to her family in Pittsburgh and Stephen, now in Pittsburgh, now in New York, went slowly downhill. But during this decline he wrote another of his immortal songs, Beautiful Dreamer, that I also whistle when I glance up and see the plaque by the door at 601, which reads, “Stephen Collins Foster, composer of Old Folks at Home, and other immortal songs, lived in this house during the year 1854”.
Not that one is able to read the small tarnished plaque from the street. One has to go up the stoop to make it out. Tourists would never know that America’s most famous songwriter lived there. Couldn’t City Hall, out of the exorbitant taxes we render unto Caesar there, afford a few dollars for a larger, brassier sign?
Foster wound up in Manhattan’s skid row, alone at (appropriately!) the American Hotel, where he was found unconscious, at age 37, with 38 cents in his pocket. He was taken to Bellevue hospital where he died.
T. Weed