Ralph Waldo Married Twice

In Concord, New Hampshire, on Christmas Day 1827, Emerson met Ellen Louisa Tucker, who he married two years later when she was 18 years old. Ruth, Emerson's mother, followed the couple to Boston to assist in caring for Ellen, who was already suffering from tuberculosis. After saying her final words, “I have not forgotten the calm and joy” Ellen passed away at the age of 20 on February 8, 1831. Her passing deeply touched Emerson, and he made daily trips to her cemetery in Roxbury. He recorded, “I visited Ellen's tomb & opened the coffin” in a diary entry from March 29, 1832.

He married his second wife shortly after that. Emerson proposed to Lydia Jackson in a letter on January 24, 1835. On the 28th, he received her acceptance via letter. He acquired a home, which he named Bush, on the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike in Concord, Massachusetts, in July 1835. Emerson swiftly changed the name of his wife to Lidian; he called her Asia and even Queenie, and she addressed him as Mr. Emerson. They had four children: Waldo, Ellen, Edith, and Edward Waldo Emerson. Raymond Emerson's father was Edward Waldo Emerson. Lidian suggested naming Ellen after his first wife.

Although Emerson was poor while attending Harvard, he was later able to provide for his family for the majority of his life. After the passing of his first wife, he received a sizable inheritance, however, he had to sue the Tuckers in order to claim it in 1836.