Marie Rosina (Otte) Dakin (1863 - 1944)

Born 2 Nov 1863 in Marysville, Union Co., Ohio, USA

Wife of Walter Edwin Dakin — married 10 Oct 1883 in Union, Ohio, United States

Descendants

Died 6 Jan 1944 at age 80 in Saint Louis, Saint Louis Co., Missouri, USA

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Biography

Rosina was the maternal grandmother of the author and playwright Tennessee Williams. Her grandson spent a great deal of time with Rosina and her husband Rev. Walter during Tennessee's formative years.

Rosina Maria Francesca Otte was born 2 November 1863 in Marysville, Ohio, the daughter of Francis Henry Otte and Elizabert Albertzart. Her father, Francis, was a German emigrant from Hanover who had built a successful tailoring business. The Ottes were Lutheran, but their children were educated at a Roman Catholic school. Rosina later studied at Cincinnati's famous Conservatory of Music. ^[1]

Rosina married Rev. Walter Edwin Dakin 10 October 1883 in Union, Ohio.^[2] They were the parents of one child, a daughter, named Edwina Estelle Dakin. After their marriage, Rosina taught music and gave piano concerts.^[3]

Rev. Dakin was the rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in Clarksdale from 1915 to 1931. Walter and Rosina's grandson, Tennessee, lived with them during this time. "As Williams's surrogate father, Dakin's influence on young Tom was foundational to his acclaimed career as one of America's great writers. He spent his early childhood in Clarksdale with his grandfather, and many of the people, characters, and places about Clarksdale can be found in Tennessee's greatest works."^[4]

"The Long Stay Cut Short or The Unsatisfactory Supper is a tribute to Williams's maternal grandmother, Rosina Dakin (whom he affectionately called "Grand). During the autumn of 1943, Rosina Dakin and her husband, Walter Edwin Dakin, moved in with Williams's immediate family. Grand was dying of tuberculosis; however, she insisted on performing her usual domestic duties. Her efforts did not appease Williams's father, Cornelius Coffin Williams, who, as does Archie Lee, resented the elderly couple's living in his home. This tension was very painful for Williams, who had a deep, reverential love for his grandmother. He retells this traumatic episode in several works, such as "The Man in the Overstuffed Chair" and "Grand." There are also overtones of Grand's death in "Oriflamme" and "The Angel in the Alcove.""^[5]

"Her coming meant nickels for ice cream, quarters for movies, picnics in Forest Park. It meant soft and gay laughter like the laughter of girls between our mother and her mother, voices that ran up and down like finger exercises on the piano. It meant a return of grave from exile in the South and it meant the propitiation of my desperate father's wrath at life and the world which he, unhappy man, could never help taking out upon his children--except when the presence, like music, of my grandmother in the furiously close little city apartment cast a curious unworldly spell of peace over all there confined." ^[6]

Rosina died 6 January 1944 at St. Louis, Missouri at the age of 80. Her remains were buried at Miami Cemetery in Corwin, Ohio.^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ Tennessee Williams, A Biography, by Norma Jean Lutz, page 10.
2. ↑ "Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XDL2-JHY : 26 August 2019), Walter E. Dakin and Rosina Otte, 10 Oct 1883; citing Marriage, Union, Ohio, United States, 233, Franklin County Genealogical & Historical Society, Columbus; FHL microfilm.
3. ↑ Tennessee Williams, A Biography, by Norma Jean Lutz, page 10.
4. ↑ Rev. Walter Dakin on News Clarksdale.
5. ↑ Critical Companion to Tennessee Williams, by Greta Heintzeiman, page 138.
6. ↑ From William's short story, "Grand," a tribute to his grandmother, SC, pp. 380-81.
7. ↑ Find a Grave Memorial for Rosina Marie Otte Dakin.