I Am Providence: H.P. Lovecraft’s Life, Death, and Legacy

Swan Point Cemetery is situated about twenty minutes away from my home. I pass it every week on my way to my therapy session. It is located off of Blackstone Boulevard. I have always known this area as the "barrio dos ricos"--Portuguese for "the neighborhood of the rich."

Blackstone Boulevard is a long straight road with two one-way roads on each side of a grassy median which has a walkway running through the middle of it. It is a very popular spot for joggers and people walking their dogs. On each side of the road are beautiful stone million dollar homes.

Not too far from Swan Point Cemetery is Butler Hospital--Rhode Island’s first psychiatric facility, founded in 1844. It consists of several buildings on a peaceful campus. It has long been a place where the state has cared for those struggling with mental illness.

I spent time there as part of a partial hospitalization for a week in January 2024. Recently I found out that horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft's parents also spent their final years there.

About a minute drive from the entrance to Butler and on the same side of Blackstone Boulevard is the entrance to Swan Point Cemetery. Founded in 1846, it is an enormous burial ground located on the banks of the Seekonk River. It feels more like a park than a cemetery.

There are several roads--each with a street name--weaving through rolling hills, lush with varying kinds of enormous trees. A closer look at some of these trees and you will find a small label describing what kind of tree you are looking at.

It is not uncommon to see people using the park as a place to walk or just relax.

My best friend growing up is buried here. Two of my cousins are buried here, also. My partner's grandparents, aunt, and uncle are buried here. Her parents have already bought a spot reserved for them there.

It is one of the charms of this beautiful cemetery that everyday people are buried here along with some of the most prominent Rhode Islanders of all-time.

Near the center of the cemetery is, probably, the most notable Providence resident ever–Howard Phillip Lovecraft.

I've always heard the name Lovecraft and knew the genre he wrote in--horror. Modern day horror writers, including Stephen King, admit to being heavily influenced by Lovecraft.

I probably found out he was buried in this cemetery around the time my cousins were buried here fifteen years ago. At different times over the last fifteen years I have looked for Lovecraft's grave, but always failed. I always thought it was on the outskirts of the cemetery somewhere in a remote location.

Last week, I was on my way home from visiting my father in the hospital. My dad had passed out while we were talking. It was scary, but he got thoroughly checked out and he is fine, thankfully. The doctors think it was just dehydration.

Anyway, he did stay at Miriam Hospital for about three days. The hospital is about five minutes away from the cemetery. I thought of giving ChatGPT a shot at helping me find Lovecraft.

To its credit, it guided me to the corner of Pond Ave. and Avenue B. I realized the mistake I was making. I was looking for a marker with the name LOVECRAFT on it. I should have been looking for an obelisk with the name PHILLIPS on it.

As soon as I pulled up to the obelisk, I saw a family of four walking down the opposite direction. I sensed they were headed to Lovecraft's grave so I drove around a bit, admiring the other beautiful grave stones adorning the cemetery. It really is a beautiful cemetery.

When I drove back, I saw the family of four had moved on. I got out of the car and looked behind the obelisk. Hidden in its shadow (appropriately enough) was H.P. Lovecraft's tiny gravestone with the dates "1890-1937" inscribed on it. Under his inscription were the words "I AM PROVIDENCE."

I've read where some find this arrogant of him, but I just took it to mean he had great pride in his city--which I admire.

Next to his marker are two other markers–Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Phillips Lovecraft. At the time, they were just names to me, but soon I would know all their stories and find out, sadly. that their life stories would make interesting fodder for GotMeThinking.

LOVECRAFT'S LIFE

H.P. Lovecraft was the only child born to Winfield and Sarah Lovecraft. He was born in Providence on August 20, 1890. Three years later, Winfield would be committed to Butler Hospital—the same one I did my partial hospitalization in January 2024. He would remain at Butler for the last five years of his life, passing away there in 1898.

Lovecraft’s mother fell into a depression. The two moved into a home with his mother, her two sisters, and his maternal grandparents. The head of the household was his grandfather, Whipple Van Buren Phillips—a man of wealth and presence who provided for the entire family. With a name like that, he seemed destined to be rich, and for young Lovecraft, Whipple became both a role model and a father figure.

Whipple encouraged the young Lovecraft to read—especially classical literature and poetry. But in a more questionable move, he also entertained his grandson with scary bedtime stories.

In 1896, Lovecraft’s grandmother died—yet another blow for his mother, who was already reeling from her husband’s decline. The six-year-old boy found himself in a household with four people dealing with different degrees of grief. It would be totally understandable if Lovecraft wouldn't want to leave his room.

Whipple had a big home library. Lovecraft would pull books off the shelves and sit in his room and read all day. One of his favorite authors was Edgar Allen Poe. Not coincidentally, it was around this time that Lovecraft started having nightmares--thanks also, I'm sure, to his grandfather's scary bedtime stories.

By 1904, Whipple’s business ventures had been failing for years, though his family had no idea. The family became, painfully, aware when Whipple suffered a sudden stroke and died the next day at the age of 70.

The effect on Lovecraft was enormous. In a span of a six years, he had lost two father figures.

But the worst was yet to come. When Whipple's family discovered that their sole provider left them nothing, they were all forced to fend for themselves. Lovecraft and his mother were evicted from their luxurious Victorian house and they were forced to move a few blocks away to a dingy, small apartment.

Lovecraft's life was changed forever. He would take bike rides and look longingly at his old estate. He would ride his bicycle past his former estate, staring longingly at the house he once called home. He would bicycle further down to the banks of the Seekonk River. Thoughts of ending his life raced through his mind.

Lovecraft would start high school that same year and, fortunately, his insatiable quest for knowledge kept him engaged in life. He even made some friends while attending Hope High School in Providence.

He would, however, miss classes often due to mental breakdowns. Just before graduating high school in 1908, Lovecraft had a complete nervous breakdown--far worse than any previous one he had. He never ended up graduating. He had always dreamed of attending prestigious Brown University only a few blocks away, but now those dreams were squashed.

Lovecraft's depression worsened. He found himself withdrawing more and more from society. His mother was fine with that. She didn't like him leaving her sight. Her son was all she had in the world now.

Like always, Lovecraft would spend his days just reading. He liked reading pulp magazines, which were popularized in the early 1900s. These inexpensive magazines featured super-vivid covers of strange creatures. Inside the magazine were short fictitious stories of ghoulish villains and superhuman heroes.

There was one particular author, however, that Lovecraft absolutely despised. His name was Fred Jackson. He wrote for a magazine called The Argosy--which was one of Lovecraft's favorites. In Lovecraft's opinion, however, Jackson was a hack.

Before the days of the internet, the way a consumer voiced their displeasure was by writing to the company. And that's what Lovecraft did--a lot! He wrote them in a weird sort of poetic format.

His letters, eventually, caught the attention of someone from United Amateur Press Association (UAPA) in 1914. He was offered an unpaid position. Lovecraft gladly accepted.

It proved to be a turning point. After years of isolation following his nervous breakdown in 1908, the UAPA gave him an outlet. He began publishing essays, poetry, and literary criticism in its small-circulation journals. At long last, he had an audience--however small.

Meanwhile, his mother's mental state continued to deteriorate.

In 1919, she was committed to Butler Hospital. She would spend her last two years there, ultimately, succumbing to a botched surgery in 1921.

One can barely imagine the effect this had on the 30-year-old Lovecraft. He must have felt he was finally turning a corner in his career and finding a purpose in life. But it doesn't take much–especially for someone with an unstable psyche like Lovecraft's--to put someone's mind back into a spin cycle. I can, definitely, relate to that.

MEETING SONIA

Fortunately, just two months after his mother’s death, Lovecraft met Sonia Greene at a writers’ convention in Boston. She was seven years older, independent, and had a successful business selling hats. Perhaps Lovecraft saw a potential new mother figure in Sonia--someone to take care of him. Sonia, for her part, saw something in Lovecraft that no one else bothered to notice, even if she also confessed later that he was a virgin when they got married and had to be coaxed into having sex by reading romance novels.

In March 1924, they got married. Sonia must not have been a big fan of little old, boring Rhode Island. She convinced Lovecraft to move out to New York City with her.

For the first few months, things went well. Sonia's business was continuing to do well. Lovecraft even began mingling a bit in the literary underground and making some friends.

But fate had other plans.

Sonia began having health problems soon after they married. Her inability to be present for her job was ruining her business. By the start of the new year, she had little choice but to leave for Cleveland, Ohio, in an effort to save what remained of it.

BROOKLYN AND BITTERNESS

Lovecraft chose not to follow Sonia to Cleveland. Perhaps he enjoyed the novelty of finally having made friends with people he found interesting who shared the same level of enthusiasm for writing as he did.

But without Sonia there to cover expenses, he was forced to relocate to a poorer section of Brooklyn, a neighborhood dominated by immigrants, Jewish families, and Black residents. It was here that his character flaws became exposed. His journals from this time make his racism painfully clear. In one passage, he described the immigrant population of his neighborhood:

The organic things — Italo-Semitico-Mongoloid — inhabiting that nightmare chasm are loathsome and detestable to me. It is a babel of the most loathsome mongrel humanity that I have ever seen.

RETURN TO PROVIDENCE

By April 1926, Lovecraft had had enough of New York. He left Brooklyn behind and returned to his comfort zone of Providence, moving in with his aunts again. What followed were the most prolific years of his career. That same year, he wrote his most famous story, The Call of Cthulhu. In 1927, he completed The Colour Out of Space—the tale he would later call his personal favorite.

Lovecraft's decision to move back to Rhode Island, permanently, spelled the end of his marriage. He would never see Sonia again. In 1929, their divorce was finalized.

Despite Lovecraft's hitting the prime of his writing career in the late 1920s, he was still living in extreme poverty, often skipping meals. He was making money ghost writing for people like Harry Houdini and writing short stories for pulp magazines, but it wasn't much.

His works were years, even decades, away from getting the exposure that would make him the household name he is today.

DECLINE AND DEATH

In 1934, Lovecraft lost one of the aunts he lived with. Though his aunts were often not very nice to him, they remained a connection to his mother and provided a roof over his head. The death of one of these aunts stirred up old emotions in him.

By 1936, Lovecraft began suffering from persistent stomach pains. Not surprisingly, he avoided going to doctors. When he couldn't ignore the pain any more, it was too late. He was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine. Part of the reason given was the years of malnutrition from his years of poverty.

On March 15, 1937, Lovecraft breathed his last. He was only 46 years old. He is buried alongside his mother, Sarah, and father, Winfield Scott.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I didn’t expect to connect with Lovecraft the way I did when I started researching him. He was always intellectually curious, but he never managed to fit into society. He loved books, astronomy, and what lay beyond our knowledge. He wrote constantly, even when it brought him no money—something I can certainly relate to. Most of all, he was a son bound closely to his mother. That part hit home for me.

When his mother died, he was forced to grow up all at once. He jumped into a marriage, moved to New York City, and tried to conform to the norm. But it was too much. He couldn't do it.

He retreated to his comfort zone. Back in Providence, he channeled all the crazy thoughts in his head in a brilliant, creative way he never had before and never would again.

But he never managed to escape poverty or his social anxiety. In the end, he couldn't adjust in order to survive in a world that requires a certain level of conformism.

So when I see his gravestone—I AM PROVIDENCE—I don’t read arrogance. I feel a bit of pity.