Elizabeth (Lily) Walsh

Quick Facts

Significance:

Young, deaf-mute poet and protégé to author Ambrose Bierce

Place of Birth:

London, England

Date of Birth:

1872

Place of Death:

Oakland, California

Date of Death:

October, 1895

Place of Burial:

Oakland, California

Cemetery Name:

St. Marys Cemetery

“Bitter Bierce” may have grown cynical from the horrors he experienced during the Civil War. Yet he was still capable of growing a sweet friendship with members of the Walsh family from England.

Six years after he left the Civil War, Ambrose and his wife moved from San Francisco to England. He focused on growing his journalism career, wrote his first three books, and befriended the Walsh family. His son Day was born the same year as Elizabeth (Lily) Walsh.

Ambrose and his family returned to San Francisco in 1875. The Walsh family also sent Lily to attend the Wilkinson School for the Deaf in nearby Berkeley, California. Lily became an inspiring poet and Ambrose, in turn, took her as his protégé.

Lily was Deaf, but also suffered from serious health conditions. She asked to be buried next to Ambrose, before she died in 1895 at the age of 22 or 23. Unfortunately, he did not learn of this request until after her burial elsewhere. Ambrose instead paid his respects to young Lily in a different way. He tended to her gravesite regularly and sent flowers from her gravesite to her brother, Myles.

Ambrose continued his relationship with the Walsh family. Beside the two letters to Lily before her death, 57 letters were written to Lily’s brother, Myles. Fifteen of the letters specifically mention Lily and his efforts to beautify her grave. The other letters support Myles in his promising (albeit short) writing career and “Lily’s sister” Claire’s passion for art. These letters and his visits to Lily’s grave continue 16 years after her death.

Ambrose started writing his accounts of the Civil War in 1887. One of his short stories, Chickamauga, is about a young deaf-mute who is lost, confused, and bewildered by injured and dead soldiers and his own family after the gruesome battle. One wonders if Lily, a deaf-mute and close friend, was the model for this character. However, while Lily was fragile due to illness, not her deafness, her poetry no doubt allowed her to be independent and brave… unlike the deaf-mute boy in the story.

Ambrose to Lily, October 1895 (via the Ambrose Bierce Letters Project): “You must not hesitate to let me know, dear child, when I can serve you in any way, no matter where I am. And please let me hear from you—how you are and all about you. Address me as usual—'Box 73.’ Be brave—'with a heart for any fate.’”

Ambrose to Miles, December 1895 (via the Ambrose Bierce Letters Project): “After a few weeks of rainy weather I shall have the little plot sown with grass and later enclosed and marked. I wish I were permitted to put her wittily pathetic epitaph on her headstone. I would do it, sure.”