H. P. Lovecraft’s Family Bible

Now that my six-day fast has ended, I have a cold. It’s not the rejuvenation I was hoping for, but I still feel like I’m ready to start again on some of my goals.

As promised here is what happened to me recently regarding H. P. Lovecraft.

I was looking through a huge, creepy, family bible that had been passed down to my mother a few years ago, when I found a page that recorded the marriage of Winfield Scott Lovecraft and Sarah Susan Lovecraft.

Then on the births page I saw that Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s name was listed.

I thought there was no way! That H. P. Lovecraft? This couldn’t be the Lovecraft’s family Bible.

With a little more searching, I found writing near the front.

On March 22nd, 1889, it was given to Miss S. Susie Phillips from her mother. Susie is the wife of Winfield Scott Lovecraft and the mother of H. P. Lovecraft. The dates all lined up. The Bible was published in 1888 and was likely bought as a wedding gift for the Lovecrafts. In it there is a record of Susie and Winfield’s marriage and the identity of the two witnesses.

Then I thought, “I might be directly related to H. P. Lovecraft. That is crazy.”

With a little research I found that the Lovecrafts only had one son and he had no children. So unless he had a child out of wedlock, it can’t be as direct as I though it might be. I researched his family tree and my family tree, but so far I haven’t found a connection. I still need to figure out how the Bible got passed down to us.

My grandmother might know some of the answers, but she has always been strangely quite about one side of her family tree. I’ll keep you updated on what I find out.