Life Writing

This week, I focused on the Calvert reading from On Her Own, in which Rosalie writes a letter to her parents who have left her with the Riversdale plantation. Before reading it would’ve helped to have a clearer background of her parents since each of her letters is addressed to them and refer to things such as “pain she caused”, but the reader has no knowledge of. A Baltimore Sun article provides details into her father’s life as an aristocrat. Merriam-Webster defines an aristocrat as “a member of the aristocracy (government by a small privileged class)”. This provides clarity into how Rosalie inherited Riversdale, which was a large plantation and thus a symbol of wealth. Mr. and Mrs. Stier advised against Rosalie and George’s marriage and left for Belgium shortly after the birth of their first son. The families never saw each other again after this. The article also clears up her letter openings, which remained in French (the rest of the letter was translated into English), as it states their family’s native tongue was French. Mr. Calvert, his wife, and daughter moved to Belgium since the family considered themselves more European than American. However, with the French Revolution, they then had to flee Belgium for fear of prosecution as French-speakers. These letters were recovered in the documents found in the Stier’s items years later and then given to Johns Hopkins University Press for publishing and translation. The Riversdale Plantation has been preserved in Maryland.

The Stier family was renowned within Belgium beginning with Rosalie’s grandmother, Isabelle de Labistrate, gaining nobility for their family in 1778. Henri Stier was a well-educated banker having attended the University of Louvain and each of his children followed suit attending prestigious institutions. Henri Stier handled the majority of the banking in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Stier married Marie Louise and they had three children: Isabelle Marie, Charles Jean, and Rosalie Eugenie whose letters we’re reading. The Stier family immigrated to America after raising the children in Europe, and Henri became a naturalized citizen in the late 1800s. Henri Stier was active during his time in America, engaging in politics, buying land, and more. The paper written by Jacqueline Lezter details much of the Stier family’s life, which provided more context that was lost in reading the salvaged letters of Rosalie.

Works Cited

“Aristocracy.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aristocracy.

Calvert, Rosalie Stier. “Chapter Two: On Her Own." Mistress of Riverdale: The Plantation Letters of Rosalie Stier Calvert, 1795-1821, ed. Margaret Law Callcott. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1992, 47-73.

Letzter, Jacqueline. “The Political Exile of the Stiers: A Belgian Family Weighs the Cost of American Democracy (1794–1803).” Taylor & Francis, Atlantic Studies Journal , 2008, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14788810801976136.

Ponemone, Scott. “Mistress of Riversdale Mansion: In Letters to Her Family, Rosalie Stier Calvert Chronicled Work Being Done to the 19th-Century Home She so Loved.” Baltimoresun.com, 23 Oct. 2018, www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1996-09-22-1996266194-story.html.