There is really not much information about Mary Cope (1852-1888) and her poem about Awbury, her parents were Thomas Pim Cope (1823-1900) , and her mother Elizabeth Waln Stokes (1823-1902). Her brother Alban, seems to have been commited to an asylum between 1890-1891 and later on to the Hartford Retreat after Mary's death.
Mary's father seems to have made a religious trip to Europe and England in 1890, and there is correspondence from this trip asking after Alban.
Her grandparents - Thomas Pim Cope (1768-1854) Mary Drinker (1766-1825 - are interesting, her grandfather became one of the wealthiest mechants in Philadelphi, he was a politician, strong Quaker and philanthropist. Mary and Thomas were married in 1792, she also came from a Quaker family, and from the following letter, it can be seen that she loved him very much. Perhaps her way with words inspired her granddaughter Mary Cope to write poems, and it is sad that there is no correspondence or other poems in the various collections that comprise the Cope extensive collection of correspondence at Haverford College.
A Dream of Love
Judge not my beloved Friend, from my silence, that thou art absent from my thoughts—waking & sleeping, I commune with my far distant Love; and copious are the effusions I mentally pour into his unconscious ear. Last night he appeared to me in a vision, like a sudden apparition; he kiss’d me many times with great fervency but still greater haste; he did not even tarry to sit down; and was gone again on some unxplain’d momentous business swifter than a meteor in a summer sky.
Letter to Thomas Cope from Mary Cope 15 March 1808 LANCASTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ARCHIVES, DOCUMENT COLLECTION
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