Home Arts and Leisure How the Real Miss Rumphius Decorated Maine With Lupines

How the Real Miss Rumphius Decorated Maine With Lupines

Children's book character actually lived in Christmas Cove

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15 comments

There was a real Miss Rumphius who lived in Christmas Cove and secretly planted lupine seeds to adorn Maine’s roadsides and meadows.

The fake Miss Rumphius was the subject of a 1982 children’s book written by Barbara Cooney.

The real Miss Rumphius is at least partly responsible for the gorgeous show of lupines throughout Maine’s countryside in early summer. The wildflowers thrive in Maine, but they aren’t native to the state. How they got there and spread in such profusion is a mystery explained only by – well, an old lady who was the real Miss Rumphius.

Lupines in Maine

Lupines in Maine

The Real Miss Rumphius

Hilda Edwards arrived in South Bristol, Maine, from Bristol, England, in 1904, at the age of 15.

There were no roads to Christmas Cove. Hilda Edwards had to take a train to Newcastle and then a mail launch down the Damariscotta River.

Her uncle, Smith College professor Harry Norman Gardiner, had invited her to stay in his remote cottage on Jupiter Knoll at Christmas Cove. Explorer John Smith had named the inlet after discovering it on Christmas Day.

Christmas Cove in 1906

Christmas Cove in 1906

Hilda Edwards graduated from Smith in 1912 and in 1915 married Talbot Faulkner Hamlin. He was a professor and librarian at Columbia University and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Benjamin Henry Latrobe.

Like Miss Rumphius, Hilda Hamlin traveled widely, though with her husband and three sons.

After leaving her husband in Paris in 1926, she audited courses at Smith, but still came to the little cottage on Christmas Cove in summertime. She began planting lupine seeds imported from her native England. Every August she cut bundles of lupine stalks and shook out their seeds over a wider space.

Then she began putting seeds in her pocket when she walked to the post office and strewing them along the roadside. She did it in secret, rarely telling anyone about her lupine obsession. Some friends knew. The real Miss Rumphius didn’t drive, and when friends gave her a ride they’d catch her tossing lupine seeds out the window. They called her ‘Hilda Lupina’ or the ‘Lupine Lady.’

Lupine Lady

More lupines

Lupinus polyphyllus are three to six feet tall and stand erect, with leaves below the flower stalk. Their two-foot-long, spiky flowers are blue, purple, rose and white. Lupines were planted in Europe to stabilize soils and to feed animals, but they’re considered a problem in Lithuania because they crowd out forest herbs. Bears like to eat their roots.

Researchers say they arrived in Maine sometime around 1950 – when the real Miss Rumphius entered her 60s — and spread along the Maine coast.

“Many a motorist with a botanical eye pulls into a gas station for an explanation of the display,” wrote W. Storrs Lee in a 1971 article for Yankee magazine. He had visited Hilda Hamlin for an interview, noting the spectacular display of lupines along Route 129. He also noted a handwritten sign next to a woodpile: “If friends of Hilda Hamlin would tote a few sticks of wood to her cottage, they would be doubly welcome.”

Secret Garden

Hamlin, not yet immortalized as Miss Rumphius, kept her gardening a secret from the world. There’d been one exception, wrote Lee. She was on her way to the post office when a ‘regular old-time school marm’ stopped her Model T and asked her to explain the origin of the lupines.

Hamlin replied,

At the end of the road lives a queer old bird who has so many hundreds of lupines on her land that she has acquired the habit of cultivating the seed when it opens.

The old schoolmarm said she’d like to shake her hand. “Shake,” said Hamlin. “I am Hilda Lupina.”

Yankee , in a subsequent edition, published an editor’s note:  “Mrs. Hamlin was overwhelmed with hundreds of letters and almost as many visitors following publication of the original article in the June, 1971, Yankee; most of the correspondents and callers begged for sample seeds. Out of deference for Mrs. Hamlin’s advanced years, the editor feels called upon to remind would-be roadside gardeners that “Hilda Lupina” is not in competition with Burpee and other seed suppliers, and, happy as Hilda is with her fan mail, she is no longer up to distributing souvenir seeds of receiving and entertaining hordes of callers at Jupiter Knoll.”

Barbara Cooney

miss-rumphius-book-cover

Barbara Cooney was an award-winning children’s book writer who lived in Damariscotta, Maine, about 20 miles from Christmas Cove. In 1982 she wrote and illustrated the book, Miss Rumphius, about a fictional woman named Alice Rumphius who lived a life of travel and adventure before retiring to her cottage. The story begins,

“Miss Rumphius, The Lupine Lady lives in a small house overlooking the sea. In between the rocks around her house grow blue and purple and rose-colored flowers. The Lupine Lady is little and old. But she has not always been that way.”

Miss Rumphius shared the 1983 National Book Award for Children’s Books. The National Education Association named the book one of its “Teachers’ Top 100 Books for Children” in 2007. Spellbound Productions made the book into an 18-minute film in 2000, and the Maine Library Association named its Lupine Award after Miss Rumphius.

Part of the book’s appeal lies in one of its last paragraphs, in which Miss Rumphius tells her niece: “You must do something to make the world more beautiful.”

Images: Miss Rumphius book cover By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2629786; Lupines By Theendofforever at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6755546. This story was updated in 2023.

15 comments

Sarah Peskin June 23, 2017 - 12:19 pm

Love the story, love the book, but John Smith naming Christmas Cove is a legend, not a fact. See this: http://www.townofsouthbristol.com/town-history/

Hazel Raynes June 26, 2017 - 2:13 pm

Very interesting. I lived in Maine (southern) for over 45 years and always admired the lupine along York Beach shore and loved seeing them. Now I know how they got to Maine many years ago !! Thank you for sharing this story. Hazel Raynes. Hmr [email protected]

Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius – You Know What Is Awesome?! November 8, 2017 - 4:23 pm

[…] the New England Historical Society points out, “There was a real Miss Rumphius who lived in Christmas Cove and secretly planted lupine seeds to adorn Maine’s roadsides and […]

Learning Adventures + The Philosophy of Miss Rumphius - Learning Through Literature April 15, 2018 - 10:00 pm

[…] Real Life: Did you know that the character of Miss Rumphius was likely inspired by this true story? […]

Miss Rumphius – Forgotten Books and Stories June 13, 2018 - 6:59 pm

[…] Apparently, parts of the story are based on the author’s own life and on the life of Hilda Hamelin, the original Lupine Lady. […]

Steven_Alola December 22, 2018 - 1:53 am

You have probably read the story of the Lupine Lady about the life of the woman who lived by the sea and spread beauty in the form of lupine seeds. The story tells of the romanticized life in Coastal Maine, where a woman called Miss Alice Rumphius desires to do something to make the world a more beautiful place, so returns home from her worldly travels and dedicates herself to her cause.
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Cute Children's Books for Spring - The Organized Homeschooler March 10, 2019 - 11:03 pm

[…] This springtime classic picture book tells the tale of Alice Rumphius, the Lupine Lady, and her quest to make the world a beautiful place.  How can you make everything beautiful? By adding a plethora of flowers!  The beautiful flowers in this book make it one of my favorite spring books for kids.  Did you know that there was actually a real Miss Rumphius? […]

Lupines | Larson's Garden Center June 3, 2019 - 9:20 am

[…] The real Miss Rumphius is at least partly responsible for the gorgeous show of lupines throughout Maine’s countryside in early summer. The wildflowers thrive in Maine, but they aren’t native to the state. How they got there and spread in such profusion is a mystery explained only by – well, an old lady who was the real Miss Rumphius. Read More […]

Mary June 14, 2019 - 1:00 pm

The Karner Blue butterfly needs wild lupines to survive, because altho it can tame nectar from many different species, its larvae only survive on the leaves of wild lupine (Lupinus perennis).

So interesting, as this means the butterfly must have evolved with the lupine…

Karner Blue butterfly photo:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karner_blue#/media/File:Lycaeides_melissa_samuelis_(cropped).jpg

more info
https://www.fws.gov/midwest/endangered/insects/kbb/lupine.html

For the love of (wild) lupine – Tufts Pollinator Initiative June 27, 2019 - 6:37 pm

[…] more than one state, entire celebrations are devoted to this existence of this plant. And both the real and fictitious Miss Rumphius sought to spread its violet steeples along the Maine coast. There’s only one issue: this beloved […]

Do You Make the World More Beautiful? – Livin' the Dream July 2, 2019 - 9:39 pm

[…] just loved the main character in this book! Based on a real person who lived in Maine in the 1950’s, Miss Rumphius’s goals in life were to travel, to live […]

For the love of (wild) lupine August 19, 2019 - 10:44 am

[…] more than one state, entire celebrations are devoted to this existence of this plant. And both the real and fictitious Miss Rumphius sought to spread its violet steeples along the Maine coast. There’s only one issue: this beloved […]

Valley News - A Life: Edythe Marie Bugbee would never say ‘no’ to anything anyone asked her to do - Viral News January 12, 2020 - 11:37 pm

[…] for a minimum of a type of college students, Kate Niboli Luppold, Barbara Cooney’s tale of a girl cultivating lupines on the Maine coast continues to resonate greater than 1 / 4 of a […]

Miss Rumphius: Making the world more beautiful | Charlotte Riggle October 13, 2020 - 10:39 pm

[…] lupine seeds around Christmas Cove, Maine, where she spent the summers. You can learn more about Hamlin, the original Lupine Lady, from the New England Historical […]

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