The Alcott Table

It was an intriguing fact about him, this young man who seemed interested in me. His middle name was Alcott. He was a direct descendent of Louisa May Alcott on his mother’s side. I was, indeed, impressed, having been raised on Little Women.  Later, it turned out, the connection was less direct. In fact, Louisa May had no children—a fact that should not have escaped the family making such claims! Okay, so not Louisa May, but he was a descendent of her father Bronson, well-known educator and transcendentalist, friend of Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. A direct line from one of the other Little Women.

Along with the honour of a distinguished middle name came claim to Bronson Alcott’s table. It had been in his mother’s possession as long as Jack could remember. A family heirloom. We acquired it sometime in our middle years when his mother downsized.

In the late nineteenth century, Philosophers and scholars sat around it and mused about the state of the world, we were told. I pictured the four Alcott sisters performing their little plays in the next room, Louisa May herself penning her stories on its open leaves. For most of its time with us, it sat in front of the bay windows, a focal point of living room. No doubt we bored a lot of people with its story.

At the same time as we acquired the table, we became the proud owners of a portrait of Bronson. And that’s where the story begins to unravel. Because it’s not Bronson, as we long suspected and as any google-search will confirm.

It’s his cousin William. Second cousin, actually. And he, we finally concluded, was the actual Alcott ancestor. William was the less famous but more successful cousin who propped up the perpetually penniless Bronson. And he was an interesting man in his own right, a medical doctor, author of many books, founder of the American Vegetarian Society, and proponent of celibacy within marriage. Well, there’s that. 

So what of the table? Maybe it did belong to Bronson. And maybe Bronson’s chums Emerson and Thoreau did leave their fingerprints on it, and somehow it made its way to William and then down the generations through Jack’s mother to him. Or, maybe it was William’s all along and he invited the philosophers to dine with him. Or maybe they never came anywhere near it. I don’t know, and it won’t tell.

What I do know is that, though it’s been a great conversation piece over the years, its time in my living room has come to an end. I feel a bit like I’m saying goodbye to a relative (okay, an inlaw), and I do know that if Jack were still here he wouldn’t want it to go. But aside from being a piece of antique furniture on which to put things, its usefulness is limited. Its drop-leaves are supported by two additional legs that make it impossible to position chairs comfortably around it when open. Even if that were not so, this house has never had the right size space for such a table with its leaves open for dining. (And really, we eat but rarely dine.) 

So, the Alcott Table is being passed on to the next middle-named Alcott in line, our son Galen (whose own son Quentin also carries the name, so the table’s future is secure for at least another generation). As I write this, it is on the highway somewhere between my home and his.. I’m not sure he’s keen to have it, but we all have our crosses to bear. And it’s a very fine piece of furniture.

I invite him to use whatever parts of the story suit his purposes. I trust Jack would agree. The story is at least as valuable as the table. Together, they’re the stuff of family lore which, as any memoirist knows, has a truth of its own!

Oh. And then there’s the portrait…I guess I’ll keep William around for awhile. His penetrating gaze helps keep me honest.