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one. Both wives of Boston University professors and well-educated and competent themselves, they were important to Aurelia’s sense of herself as a professional woman. The three women maintained their relationship through university groups and through the church.
    The Nortons lived in Wellesley Hills and belonged to the Unitarian Church; the Braces lived near them for several years until they moved to the suburb of Belmont. The families who were acquainted through Boston University — the Schoonovers, the Despoteses, the Andrewses, along with the Braces, the Nortons, and the Plaths — were drawn together partly because their children were close in age. At gatherings such as picnics or Christmas parties, the Brace and Norton boys played word games, anagrams, board games, and conundrums with Sally Andrews, Poppy Despotes, and Sylvia. The friendships of these children — most of them academically talented, all destined to attend good schools on scholarships — created an important world for Sylvia. They reinforced goals her mother was establishing for her and for Warren.
    Aurelia was particularly close to Mildred Norton. Sylvia and Warren called Mrs. Norton “Aunt Mildred,” and the three Norton boys called Mrs. Plath “Aunt Aurelia.” As the families spent time together, the children gradually became good friends.
    Even if Aurelia Plath had had no friendships of her own to maintain, she probably would have cultivated the association of the faculty group. Much of her life was motivated by finding what would be best for her children. Whom should they know? What should they learn to do? The Plath family spent hours during these years at the small branch library near Elmwood Road. Aurelia still read aloud to the children ( The Yearling and Johnny Tremain were the last books she read before their own reading speeds made them want to read for themselves). Sundays meant services at the Unitarian Church, where both children received perfect-attendance medals each year. Every Christmas, Sylvia found a diary in her stocking, and from the time the children were born, Aurelia put what little extra money there was into a “book fund” for them, believing, as she wrote in an unpublished memoir, “We had no money, save for essentials. Through education we could, however, build a priceless inner life!”
    During Sylvia’s junior high years, Aurelia began taking the family to plays and concerts. When Sylvia was in seventh grade, they saw The Tempest with Vera Zorina and Canada Lee at the Colonial Theater in Boston. Both children had read the entire play (when Mrs. Plath gave Warren Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare , he insisted on reading the full version, as Sylvia had). Sylvia’s fascination with Ariel, Miranda, and Caliban, then, dated from January of 1945. The Tempest is not a play she read in school, but the father-daughter relationship, the reunion, the ocean, and the androgynous powers of Ariel made the story especially germane to a young girl fashioning her adolescent self-image.
    That April the family heard the Gordon String Quartet at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. A few days later, Sylvia went to help out at the Nortons’ — cleaning and cooking for “Uncle Bill” and the three boys, Dick, Perry, and little David — while Mildred was in bed with severe influenza. At home, however, Sylvia seldom did housework or cooking. Grammy Schober reigned in those departments, so Sylvia was free for piano lessons, reading, writing, drawing, playing with friends, jumping rope, riding bikes, and drinking Cokes at the local Howard Johnson’s.
    Sylvia’s seventh grade year, 1944-45, saw her receiving all A’s once again, except for a first-term B in sewing. At the June 20 Awards Assembly, she was given the Wellesley Award, as the outstanding student in seventh grade. She also received two commendation cards from her English teacher, and two Honor Certificates for extra book reports.
    The year 1945 saw her first