2025 Life Logs, Day 55: Field Trip to Mary Baker Eddy House
Date: Monday, February 24, 2025
Weather: Beautiful Day, Warming; High Temp 41, Low 37 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Who was Mary Baker Eddy? And why did our field trip group go to tour one of her homes? Mary Baker was born on a farm in Bow, New Hampshire in 1821. She was an American religious leader, Christian healer, and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the Mother Church of the Christian Science movement in Boston, Massachusetts. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, and three religious magazines and published numerous books. Eddy’s most important publication was Science and Health. She was also the author of 16 other titles that are still in print today. But the reason for the trip was not centered on her accomplishments. We went to tour the home she lived in during her last three years. It is a 3-story home at 400 Beacon Street in Chestnut Hill on the edge of Boston.
The home was built in around 1880, but was purchased an renovated by Mary Baker Eddy in 1908. After her death in 1910, her staff was allowed to live in it until their deaths. It then sat empty for almost a hundred years and was restored true to its 1908 status. Our docent-led two- and half-hour tour was fabulous. It was a long tour, but at the end we had more and more questions. The time literally flew by. The story of restoring the house with wallpaper and carpeting and furniture as true to the original as possible was truly fascinating. My favorite room was her office.
As I sat in that room, I tried to picture this diminutive woman in her late-80’s sitting at that desk creating the Christian Science Monitor. She must have been quite the woman.
