Eliza Monroe Hay was confident and outspoken. Nineteenth-century society didn’t like that.
The daughter of U.S. President James Monroe died penniless and in obscurity in Paris Jan. 27, 1840. For the next 180-plus years, the same story would be perpetrated. “The standard narrative about her was that she was not a pleasant person and was real bossy,” said Barbara VornDick, leader of the Bringing Eliza Home Project. “I came to the conclusion that I think she had a lot of qualities … that we applaud today in women.”
VornDick, Kathryn Willis, Sue Henderson and Maureen Goonan, a parishioner of St. Patrick Church in Fredericksburg, seek to correct the historical record while working to repatriate Eliza’s remains and organizing a proper burial at her family’s plot in Richmond.
VornDick, a parishioner of Sts. Peter and Paul in Palmyra in the Richmond diocese, said she would have never expected to lead the repatriation and interment of the remains of a president’s daughter. After VornDick retired, she began volunteering at James Monroe’s Highland, a museum on the fifth U.S. president in Albemarle County. As a tour guide, VornDick would receive questions about Monroe’s family. So, she began research on the family, particularly his eldest daughter, Eliza.
She didn’t buy the repetitive narrative that Eliza abandoned her family and moved to Paris on a whim. So, with the help of her daughter Beth Sawyer, a historian at Monticello, she began delving into primary source documents. What she found became a five-year research project. “My little research paper ended up being about 100,000 words,” she said.
At the special collections library at William and Mary in Williamsburg, VornDick read Eliza’s final letters. “She wrote in those last letters what had happened to her, and how she ended up penniless. A family member had stolen her inheritance from her; it had been denied to her,” she said. “The inventory of her effects showed that all she had when she died were two traveling trunks of stuff you travel with. So, she had clothes, she had a couple of hair pieces, some scarves, some jewelry. She did not own a candle holder; she did not own one household effect.” VornDick maintained “that is not the inventory of a woman who had set up a residence intending to live out her life and die there.”
She spent years verifying Eliza’s claims, sifting through primary source court documents and transcripts. “It turned out to be a detective story,” she said.
Eliza also had a secret, one that became family legend. VornDick said that a family rumor persisted that Eliza had run away to Paris to become a nun. VornDick’s research debunked that theory but Eliza did indeed convert to Catholicism. St.-Philippe-du-Roule Church in Paris holds the only documentation of Eliza’s Catholic identity — a parish archivist found a record for Eliza’s funeral Mass, stating that she was a parishioner.
VornDick also found another primary document that suggests Eliza’s conversion may have occurred earlier. In 1833, Eliza made a pilgrimage to Rome. Following the trip, she received a gift, a cameo of the head of Christ, and a letter from Pope Gregory XVI’s secretary of state, which VornDick summarized: “Have a safe passage, and here is a token of my fidelity that I will keep your secret.” The secret is unknown, but VornDick speculates that it may refer to Eliza’s conversion to Catholicism.
But why repatriate Eliza? “I realized that if she never intended to die there, we needed to bring her home,” VornDick said. “It’s what we do as Americans.”
Goonan, who was in the process of editing VornDick’s book on Eliza, was ecstatic. “She explained her vision of bringing Eliza home, and when I heard that, my heart just exploded,” she said. “We took it on together.”
VornDick arranged a meeting with Chris Snider, senior adviser to Virginia State Sen. Bryce Reeves. Snider, whom she described as a Monroe “history buff,” was eager to help. U.S. officials began working with French officials to repatriate the president’s daughter. But first, VornDick had to find living descendants of both Eliza and an American consul, Daniel Brent, who had personally paid for Eliza’s plot in Paris. She spent more than a year tracking down living descendants for their approval to repatriate Eliza.
At long last, VornDick received the final sign-off from a descendant of Daniel Brent. Eliza was coming home.
In May, VornDick and Goonan went to Dulles International Airport to receive Eliza, who had been placed in a brand-new, small wooden coffin. “Barbara brought flowers, and I had a rosary that I put (on top),” Goonan said.
Eliza’s remains currently reside at Found and Sons Funeral Chapel in Fredericksburg. She will be interred in her family’s plot at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond Oct. 23.
VornDick spoke with emotion about her connection to Eliza over the last five years. “When you hold someone’s letters in your hands, and you read her (words) … she’s destitute, and she had nobody and nothing,” she said, her voice breaking. “So, I just wanted to make it right for her.”
Find out more
Go to hffi.org/bringing-eliza-home.
