So here I am an old, decrepit woman, but I’m not waiting to die. That will come soon enough.
Sonia to Sidney Moseson, his wife Florence, and daughter Leonore, August 25, 1964.
On December 26, 1972, Sonia passed away in Sunland, California.
Though I’ve been studying Sonia’s life for the last two years, this is the first year that I’ve reflected on her death anniversary. It’s a date that has rarely crossed my mind, especially with the chaos of Christmas and family birthdays in December. Yet, when I think of when she died, the day after Christmas, it saddens me to think that in some ways she was likely overlooked on her last days because of the chaos of the holiday. I can’t even begin to describe how she spent December 25, 1972, only because she did not keep any record of her daily life. However, knowing her character, I would assume she did her best to celebrate with her friends at Diana Lynn Lodge, the nursing home she lived in Sunland during the last years of her life. I know in my heart of hearts that she would have endured the holiday cheerfully, regardless of what ailed her.
Therefore, on this very day, Sonia H. Davis will be remembered. I can’t think of a better way to remember her and her legacy than by reflecting on all the goodness that’s been achieved in trying to bring attention to her life. While my words may seem I accomplished all of this in my own strength, that is not the case. It has taken a literal community to achieve these amazing milestones. Your support and encouragements have made it happen—Thank you!
The end of the year is always a time of reflection. It’s only natural to want to see if, the goals we had set for ourselves at the beginning of the year, were accomplished. An unfulfilled goal does not make one a failure. Progress, of any set goal, is success and worth celebrating. Bullet journaling has been an extremely valuable tool for me, especially to see the overall progression of the whole year. It puts my own expectations into perspective and reminds me to give myself some grace where I might’ve failed.
In January, I had designed a 2023 yearly goals outline on the first page of my “Bujo” (as the cool kids say!), and in this general breakdown, my goals were arranged in three specific categories: “Literary”, “Scholarly”, and “Personal”. For the sake of this post, I’ll only elaborate on the scholarly goals I had set for the year. The three scholarly goals were:
- Post once a month on the website.
- Transcribe Sonia’s essays.
- Learn the bookbinding trade—Bind my own books.
I’ll admit, the third goal was a bit over ambitious on my part. Yet, being tenacious in everything I set to do, I genuinely studied the art of binding books. A good friend of mine even let me borrow her leatherworking tools.
I was certain I could do it (and I’m sure I would have), but I instinctively knew deep down the bookbinding aspect was going to take me away from the actual work involved in starting a manuscript. So, like all good intentions, this goal went to die and remain an unfulfilled dream. However, two out of the three goals completed is not too shabby, especially when considering this year had four “yay” moments. These are goals that coincided with my yearly goals outline, and aspirations that arose during the year, all of which were accomplished.
For 2023, the four “yay” moments were:
- I researched and drafted a post every month at The Papers of Sonia H. Davis.
- Transcribed the majority of Sonia’s essays.
- Finished the revision of Sonia’s autobiography.
- Met Sonia’s great, great niece.
When I first began this website on September 25, 2022, I was posting every two weeks, which in many ways was reasonable. However, life thought otherwise. My posting schedule fell out of routine in November 2022, and I began to feel overwhelmed with drafting new posts every two weeks. I swiftly realized in the new year that I genuinely enjoy the concept of quality over quantity and decided that I needed to create a posting schedule that would accommodate this vision. In considering what was my goal at the beginning of the year and now being the end of the year, I can confidently say that I’ve fulfilled that bullet point in my yearly goals outline.
Twelve months resulted in twelve posts. For 2023, I have presented you with new shades of Sonia from her attendance at the July 1921 National Amateur Press Association convention in Boson, described what love meant to Howard and Sonia, recommended the literature that Sonia read and enjoyed, analyzed the possibility if Sonia wrote her essays from personal experience or research, revealed Sonia’s childhood friend, elaborated on the rocky relationship of Solomon and Racille (Rachel) Moseson, unpacked Sonia’s contribution to amateur journalism (Part I) (Part II), and lastly spotlighted the very woman who taught Sonia her livelihood. While accomplishing this goal, I have inadvertently accomplished another. These articles form a very useful list of additional resources for readers of Sonia’s autobiography. As the publication date draws closer, I’ll create a post for that list to make it easily accessible.
In the midst of drafting posts and editing the autobiography, I was also transcribing Sonia’s essays. This venture began in October 2022, and now that it’s December 2023, I’m both glad and sad this part of the goal is coming to an end. I am on the second to last PDF with only eight essays left to transcribe. This has been a project that has felt mindless sometimes because transcribing is not an entirely exciting task. And yet, it has been the one stable and constant task I’ve done for the past year—whether my workload was full or not, transcribing her essays was the one task I could count on to keep me productive. Fortunately, due to the amount of work involved, her essays will continue to keep me busy for some time.
After fifty-one years, Sonia’s autobiography has finally been arranged, edited, proofread, and soon on its way to the printers. If I do nothing else within the Lovecraftian community, this project alone is my greatest honor and sense of achievement. Two Hearts That Beat as One was a dream that I had set out to do regardless of fanbase or interest. It was a dream I was not even going to share with the world, to be quite honest, but thanks to the encouragement of my good friend, Chris Miller, I decided to make the whole venture public. Who knows where the manuscript would be now if it wasn’t for his support. While I began much of the work on her life in 2021, in 2023, there was still much work to be done.
Originally, I had included the manuscripts of The Private Life of Howard Phillips Lovecraft and European Glimpses into the autobiography, but I had thought it neat to leave them in as easter eggs. My good friend, Bobby Derie, who was my beta reader for the manuscript, suggested that perhaps it would be better if I differentiated these texts, for the sake of everyone who wishes to cite the autobiography, and he also suggested annotating the “HPL years” to further verify Sonia’s accounts. And because I wasn’t already overambitious in getting these suggestions completed, I also decided what the autobiography needed was a timeline! Why? Because even with my over compulsive disorder to perfect the autobiographical timeline, there are still moments that are out of place as a result of how Sonia wrote the accounts.
So, the summer of 2023, was the hardest months I’ve ever endured during this project. It was unbelievably challenging! I crammed years and years of Lovecraftian scholarship into three months of annotations. Nevertheless, I’m so glad that I have friends like Bobby who suggest daunting improvements, because as challenging as it may have felt to get it all done, the end result was worth it. After those three months, the manuscript I resubmitted had significantly improved and I felt as though I had finally earned the title of “scholar”. Honestly, I just can’t wait for the day that physical copies are finally released because it’s going to be such a beautiful thing.
When I began working on Two Hearts, meeting a descendant of Sonia’s was always a small little wish of mine. However, I thought it was a wish that if it was meant to be, it’d happen naturally. On August 4, 2023, I received an email from my bookseller friend, who has equipped me over the years with some of Sonia’s belongings, asking if I was interested in corresponding with a woman who had just bought The Private Life of H.P. Lovecraft from his online store, and who just happens to be Sonia’s great, great niece. Imagine my great delight! A week later I had the pleasure of meeting Sonia’s great, great niece, whose name I shall keep a mystery for privacy purposes. It was a dream come true, especially when I found out she was the granddaughter of Sonia’s niece, Leonore Goldberg, the very niece who was considering publishing Sonia’s biography. We have Sonia’s autobiographical writings because of Leonore’s interest in Sonia’s life. Leonore was a woman I truly wanted to meet and ask her a million questions, and although I didn’t get that chance, it was an absolute joy talking to Sonia’s great, great niece, (a successful woman who would’ve made Sonia very proud) and talking to her about her great, great aunt.
Well, now that 2023 is coming to an end, what’s next for 2024?
In the new year, I’m going to begin elaborating on Sonia’s contribution to amateur journalism, expanding the topic into a book. I’ve begun outlining the book and look forward to starting this new adventure. I genuinely enjoyed drafting the two-part post back in September and October, and I believe there’s still much left to unearth in that chapter of Sonia’s life.
In the midst of that project, I will continue transcribing the last of the essays. Once that’s done, I’ll begin the process of sorting them by their topic and see what volumes we shall get. While it’s still early on in the project, I’d say some of the essays can already make a three book set. So, we’ll see!
If there’s still enough time in between those two projects, I hope to acquire scans of Sonia’s correspondence and begin transcribing those, in hopes for a correspondence book.
As for this blog, I will continue to provide new posts once a month throughout 2024.
Lastly, while it’s still too early to confirm this, I may be attending the NecronomiCon 2024, but more details on that later.
And thus, wraps up 2023! I look forward to sharing with you the progress of these new ventures in the new year!
The Papers of Sonia H. Davis 