In her letter of September 28, 1956, Sylvia Plath responded with horror to her mother’s idea to rent out a room in the family home in Wellesley: “So glad you aren’t renting room. DON’T!” Sylvia – then living temporarily with her in-laws in England – went on to explain why sharing living space was awful.
But in 1957 Sylvia heartily approved of the familiar "Aunt Marion" Freeman, Aurelia's friend and mother of Sylvia's childhood playmates, moving in with Aurelia during the year Ted and Sylvia were in the United States. "Aunt Marion" lived with Aurelia at least until May 1958. [1]
So it wasn't unprecedented when, after Sylvia's death, Aurelia took in at least two more roomers. These were young women, her students from Boston University.
In 1966, Aurelia was living alone in a house full of memories. Sylvia was three years dead; Aurelia's father had died the year before. Ted Hughes had written Aurelia forbidding her to visit England in 1966; it was the first summer in five years Aurelia would not see her grandchildren. Aurelia wrote on Hughes' letter, in black marker, "BOMB #1" -- signifying that she made this annotation in retrospect -- and drew a tearful face. Then the sensational U.S. release of Ariel in June let the whole world know Aurelia's daughter had killed herself. Strangers phoned asking whether Sylvia's "Daddy" had really been a Nazi. It was as if Sylvia had died a second time. Aurelia, overwhelmed, couldn't eat or sleep.
During that turbulent year Aurelia had a student living with her. To her friend Miriam Baggett on April 19, 1966, Aurelia wrote, “When my 19-year-old student is here with me, I can submerge myself in her interests and problems.” On July 7 Aurelia wrote Baggett about “my teenager here” who “spills out her difficulties nightly.” The student is never named.
Ten years later a journalist came to the Wellesley house to profile Aurelia for Boston University’s alumnae magazine. She mailed Aurelia a draft of her article. Aurelia struck out its whole third paragraph, which read: “When one favorite student contracted mononucleosis and thought she would have to quit school, [Mrs.] Plath brought her home for ‘rest and relaxation’ and the young woman ended up staying for two years. Today they still maintain their friendship.” [2]
This was a different student. This longer-term roomer occupied the Wellesley house while Aurelia taught at Cape Cod Community College during 1970-71. In July 1970 Aurelia wrote her longtime friend and former high-school student Mary Stetson Clarke: “I shall let a friend live in my house here -- she is with me now five days a week . . . she returns to her home every Friday evening for the weekend.” In April 1971 Aurelia wrote, again to Clarke: “If my good friend can continue to live in my Wellesley home . . .” The arrangement must have been satisfactory.
So Aurelia’s having occasional live-ins was not a secret, but Aurelia -- by 1976 known for editing Sylvia Plath’s Letters Home -- did not want her fellow Boston University alumnae or the wider public to know.
The friendship with the second student was durable. Aurelia told a correspondent in 1983 that her "one-time student friend, who is now with her own family spending a year in Wurtzburg, West Germany," had recently phoned and her voice "came through with perfect clarity." [3]
[1] Sylvia Plath to Aurelia S. Plath, 24 May 1957.
[2] The draft is in Smith College’s Sylvia Plath Papers IX, “Aurelia Plath.” The published article is “Aurelia Plath: A Lasting Commitment,” by Linda Heller, in Bostonia (Boston University alumnae magazine) Spring 1976, 36.
[3] ASP to Mary Ann Montgomery, 12 May 1983.