![]() Personal letters from a dead relative are, however, a rather unusual grave good. Grave goods have been found in human burials from about 14,000 years ago through to the present in a wide variety of cultures. It is my wish that all of my Darling Beloved Mothers letters also the 2 enclosed letters, shall be placed in a sort of black bag, and used as a pillow for my head in my coffin, and all to be buried with me. In burial instructions that he wrote in 1915 and re-initialed in 19, Houdini declared: Each letter, he observed in his diary, was “a love story, a prayer to God to protect her children, a plea that we should be good human beings.” In gathering and reading them he shed, he said, “many a bitter tear.” ^ He had them transcribed in “good German,” typed out, and put in book form so he could read them easily. ![]() Houdini also gathered all the letters he had received from his mother: Houdini was still lying down next to his mother’s grave and speaking into the earth to her a year after her death. There he talked to her, begging her to let him know her last words. He lay flat on the ground, his arms embracing her grave, his face pressed close to the earth. He visited his mother’s grave every day and also every night at fifteen minutes past midnight, the instant of her death. In the weeks after her death, Houdini rarely left their house other than to visit her grave: Twelve days after his mother’s death, Houdini was at her body’s side in their home in New York. Upon receiving news of his mother’s death, Houdini broke his European performance contract and returned immediately by ship to New York. Houdini apparently insisted that his mother not be buried immediately, as was Jewish custom. He regained consciousness sobbing, “Mother – my dear little mother – poor little mama.” ^ Houdini later wrote, “I who have laughed at the terrors of death, who have smilingly leaped from high bridges, received a shock from which I do not think recovery is possible.” ^ Amid a press conference in Denmark after performing for an audience that included members of the Danish royal family, Houdini received a cable informing him of his mother’s death. In the course of his career as a performer, Houdini had added death-defying feats to his handcuff and prison escapes. Houdini suffered greatly from news of his mother’s death. He lived in that home with his wife Bess and his German-speaking mother until his mother’s death in 1913 at age seventy-two. Houdini described his mother and his wife Bess as “My two Sweet-hearts.” In 1904, after he achieved financial success, Houdini bought a home in the German section of Harlem. He acknowledged, “if I do anything, I say to myself I wonder if Ma would want me to do this?” ^Įven after twenty years of marriage, Houdini’s wife did not outrank his mother in his expressed affections. ^ He delighted in bringing her to see his performances. ^Īs an adult, Houdini described his mother as “the guiding beacon of my life.” Houdini wore only clothes that his mother had picked out for him. Well into his adult life, Houdini and his mother would gratify each other by reenacting this embrace. If he started to fret, she would hold him to her breast, and the sound of her heartbeat soothed him. ![]() …she would insist that even as a baby, he never cried. Houdini would claim throughout his life a special relationship to her, as, apparently, she did to him. Through a childhood of poverty and marginal social status, Houdini came to view his mother as “a figure of transcendent love and selfless devotion,” an “angel.” Houdini considered himself to be a “mothers-boy.” One biographer noted: Houdini’s father struggled to find and hold work as a rabbi. Houdini’s father brought his family, including Houdini, from Hungary to the U.S. Harry Houdini had an extraordinarily close relationship with his mother.
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