Love and the Houston’s

By Helen Belcher, Historical Interpreter

for The Huntsville Item

As January ends and February begins, many of us will be preparing for Saint Valentine’s Day on the 14^th. There are cards to be sent, flowers ordered, and candy bought for our beloveds.  With this in mind I began to research the question, “Did Sam and Margaret Houston celebrate Valentine’s Day?”

First, some background on the day.  There are many legends regarding the origins of the holiday and its relationship to love.  The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in “Parlement of Foules” (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer.  Chaucer’s words translate as "For this was on Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."  Almost everyone has used the cliché Valentine's Day poem found in the collection of English nursery rhymes Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784):

    The rose is red, the violet's blue,

    The honey's sweet, and so are you.

    Thou art my love and I am thine;

    I drew thee to my Valentine:

    The lot was cast and then I drew,

    And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s.  In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America.  Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons, and colorful pictures.  What began with hand-written and decorated cards has given way to mass produced cards.  Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated one billion Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine's Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year.  With modern technology an estimated 15 million e-valentines are sent with the number increasing each year. 

In the second half of the 20th century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to giving gifts which included flowers, especially roses, and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box.  In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry.

Using Madge Thornall Roberts’ two books, Star of Destiny and The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston and William Seale’s book, Sam Houston’s Wife as references, I could not find any mention of Valentine’s.  During the time the Houston’s lived here in Huntsville, 1848 until 1859, Senator Houston was in Washington, D.C. most of the year, and Margaret resided here at the Woodland Home with their children.  Although mass produced valentines were available in the East, there isn’t any mention of cards being exchanged. 

The couple did exchange many letters professing their love and devotion throughout their marriage.  Legend has it that Margaret would enclose a heart-shaped catalpa leaf in her letters to Sam.  Even at the beginning of their relationship Margaret wrote poems about her love.  “Lines to a Withered Pink” contains eight stanzas on how she would cherish a flower because Houston had given it to her.  In July of 1839 Margaret wrote the following to Houston from Marion, Alabama, “Last night I gazed long upon our beauteous emblem, the star of destiny, and my thoughts took the form of verse.”  While living in Huntsville supplies for letter writing were not easily accessible to Margaret and mail delivery was unpredictable.  She wrote as often as possible filling every space on the page, even writing along the edges of the paper.

Senator Houston had much more access to paper and writing materials, and the mail went out regularly.  He would write almost daily, and on some occasions twice a day.  He would address his letters with “My Love” or “My Dearest Love” and close with a variety of endearments, such as “Thy ever devoted and faithful husband.”  In a letter written in 1845 while on speaking tour, Houston wrote, “My Love, I can only say that you are the spring of my joys and the object of my hopes.  In short, you are the companion of my heart, and the only star that sheds a light upon my affections.  How painful it is to be separated from you.”  In February of 1849 he wrote from Washington, D.C., “Today I have nothing else to send by [sic] my love, and that, or a part of it, I am sure you will plant in the [heart] of our children!  Won’t you my Love? The balance you can lay by, in the casket of your affections.”

Houston would also send or bring jewelry to his beloved wife.  The following account was given in Star of Destiny, “During a stay in Washington, DC, he asked Margaret if she would like to have a locket with a daguerreotype of his likeness and a new velvet dress.  She answered that she would be delighted with the likeness.  As to the dress, she would wear it to make him happy…she would rather that he send her some books.  Later when the likeness arrived, she wrote delightedly that she could almost fancy that he had been thinking of her when it was taken, and that she had pressed it fondly to her lips and heart, wishing that he could have been as close at the moment.”  When Antoinette Houston was born, Houston arrived home in February with a gold locket engraved “Mrs. Sam Houston, Texas.”

Although there isn’t any evidence that the Houston’s exchanged valentines, Sam and Margaret spent the twenty-three years of their marriage exchanging words and tokens of their love and affection. Should we follow the Houston’s example and express our love each and every day, as well as on Valentine’s Day?