Eunice Beecher

Mrs. H.W. Beecher

    When we finished our series on the Beecher family a few issues back, one very important person was unfortunately overlooked. This article is meant to give equal time to Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher. While not born a Beecher, Eunice White Bullard became one in every way. Fidelity to family, husband, church and convention became her watchword. In every book that has been published about the Beechers Eunice is depicted as a shrew, the “Griffin” or a sour old woman who turned her husband away with her complaints. As Eunice died in the late 1890s, there is no one alive today who knows the truth. What we do know is that her life was devoted to helping her husband in his ever-expanding pastorates in Indiana, and ultimately the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. Eunice’s life consisted of child bearing and miscarriages: one example is a child born on March 1, 1840, who died the same day. She still gave birth in her forties, when she brought forth twin boys, Alfred and Arthur, who died shortly after their first birthday. When the adultery charges against Henry Ward Beecher started up, she remained silent, supportive, and always at his side. Eunice went through agony during the adultery charges and trial against her husband, who was ultimately acquitted.

(The following is taken from my book, “Love Divine: The Life of Henry Ward Beecher”:)

  Many years ago I had the privilege of visiting with Eunice’s grand-niece, Cecilia Frances Tucker Luther, of Sutton, Massachusetts. At that visit, Mrs. Luther showed me a table that Eunice had decorated, a tea set that had belonged to her and a mortar and pestle belonging to Eunice’s father Artemis. She spoke of the many books about the Beecher scandal that were published in the 1920s and 1930s. “The authors were muckrakers, and my mother (Eunice’s niece) died as a result of the terrible anguish these books brought to the family. I think it was a dreadful thing to write books deliberately to smear people. They spoke so scathingly about Eunice... Aunt Beecher. I remember when she was coming to visit the old homestead in West Sutton a few years before her death. We were all so excited because Aunt Beecher was a dear, sweet and kind old lady whom everyone loved.