VALENTINE’S DAY

A random pastiche of all things Valentine and valentine in the land of Cantab.

Image: https://www.zazzle.com/victorian_broken_heart_valentines_day_card-

SAINT WHO?

It’s not exactly clear who St. Valentine actually was. The Encyclopedia Britannica reports two competing versions. The most accepted theory is that he was a “Roman priest and physician” who was martyred under the rule of Emperor Claudius II. The other notion is that he was the Bishop of Terni, Italy, who was also martyred in Rome. Valentine the physician apparently cured his jailer’s daughter of blindness; writing to her before his execution, he signed his name “Valentine.” Thus traditions are born.

VALENTINE AS A NAME

“Valentine,” as both a masculine and feminine name, derives from the Latin “valens,” which means “strong and healthy” and was used by the Roman family of Valentinus. The female version as a first name is usually “Valentina.”

In 1850 four Cambridge men with the surname Valentine are listed in the City Directory. One was Charles Valentine (1797-1850), a wealthy Cantabrigian whose large estate was at the corner of Prospect and Harvard streets (now the site of Whole Foods).

Photograph: “Exterior view of front (east) wall, stable, and carriage house with Hon. and Mrs. Robert O. Fuller in background” ca. 1890 (Historic American Buildings Survey). Courtesy of Mrs. James A. Dunlap, Jr.

A player in Cambridge politics, Valentine was in the provisions trade and built a soap and candle- making factory in Cambridgeport at the corner of Pearl Street and–wait for it–Valentine Street, of course. The factory was subsequently bought by C. L. Jones.

Charles Valentine died shortly after his new mansion was finished; his obituary calls him as “a man of many eccentricities and peculiarities of character, but there are those who will have occasion long to remember his kindness and unostentatious charities” (Cambridge Chronicle, January 17, 1850). He left a wife and eight children. He is buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Lot #1319 Pine Avenue. His monument was made by a well-known monument sculptor, William Freedley.

VALENTINE CARDS

Hand-made valentines made their appearance in the early eighteenth century and were soon followed by commercially produced cards.

ROSES ARE RED, VIOLETS ARE BLUE…

This little poem, so associated with Valentine’s Day, started out as a nursery rhyme in a children’s book from in England in 1784: