Biographical Information:

Rowena Goddard was bron in Portland, Maine on February 6, 1869 to Charles William Goddard and Rowena Caroline Morrill, his second wife. Rowen's father graduated from Bowdoin College in 1844; was a member of the Maine Senate in 1858; President of the Senate in 1859; Counsul General of the United Sates at Constantinople from 1861 to 1864; Judge of the Superior Court of CUmebrland County, Maine from 1868 to 1871; lecturer on Medical Jurisprudence at Bowdoin College, and postmaster of Portland. Rowena's mother was the daughter of Anson Peaslee Morrill, a governor of Maine and was the niece of Lot M. Morrill, also a governor of Maine.

Rowena married her first husband, Leigh Chamberlain, in Roxbury Massachusetts on April 11, 1893. He was the son of Eleaser Davis Chamberlin and Margaret Ella Merrill Chamberlin and was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 7, 1869. He studied law at Harvard Law School but had to leave in 1893 due to health reasons. He continued to battle health issues through his marriage and died in Colarado Springs on April 28, 1904.

After Leigh's death, Rowena married William Augustus Otis in December 1909. William was born on September 14, 1864 in Cleveland, Ohio and was teh son of Charles Augustis Otis, a steel and iron manufacturer in Cleveland and the city's mayor from 1873 to 1875. William was a successful businessman and a partner in Otis & Houghes, Bankers of Cleveland.

Rowena died November 15, 1951 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her brother, Morrill Goddard, was a journalist and started his career with Joseph Pulitzer. He later worked with William Randolph Hearst at The American Weekly from 1896 to 1937. Another brother, Charles William Goddard, was a playright and screenwriter who wrote Broadway plays as well as adapted a number of stage plays to film.

Scope and Contents

Contains the diary of Rowena Goddard of Portland, Maine kept while traveling in Germany with her mother in the spring and summer of 1889. Goddard spends most of her trip in Dresden taking drawing lessons from a Herr Schinker. Some some other sites she visited while in Germany include Berlin, Bohemia, Karlstad and Bayreuth. In her diary, Goddard wrote of taking German lessons and socializing with other students and friends, wandering and observing the city she is in, her extensive travels by train, seeing and describing the Kaiser in Berlin, making sketches of country-side scenes, and getting her fortune told among other topics. The diary also contains loose drawings, train tickets, and flowers.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Berlin (Germany)--Description and travel--19th century
• Bohemia (Czech Republic)--Description and travel
• Diaries
• Germany--Description and travel--19th century
• Germany--History--19th century
• Women travelers--Diaries