Family

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain met the woman he would eventually marry, Fanny Adams, when he was a senior in college. Fanny was the daughter of the minister at the First Parish Church, where Chamberlain led the choir. "As a dignified Senior, he began to squire Fanny to prayer meetings and various college festivities. Soon he was deeply in love with her" (Wallace 23).
     Fanny was charming and spirited, though temperamental at times. She did not see herself fit to be a minister's wife, and was quite relieved when her fiance took a teaching position at Bowdoin in 1855.
     The two married that year, and the following year brought a daughter, Grace Dupee, whom Chamberlain affectionately referred to as Daisy. A second child died in infancy in early 1858. Later that year, a son, Harold Wyllys, was born. A fourth child also did not survive.
     Chamberlain acquired a home for his new family very

close to the Bowdoin campus in 1861. After the Civil War, he found it too small to accommodate the constant barrage of distinguished guests that he was perpetually entertaining--including Generals Grant and Sherman, Charles Sumner, William Pitt Fessenden, and numerous senators, congressmen, and governors--so he had the house raised off of the ground in order to build another story underneath.
Chamberlain remained a dedicated husband and father throughout the years. "Joshua and Fannie's love for their children, reflected the love between themselves" (Deans 106).
Harold, a Bowdoin graduate himself, would become a lawyer and a scientist, never marrying; Grace married in 1881. Chamberlain's beloved Fanny died in 1905, shortly after her 80th birthday. For her birthday, he had written her a letter thanking her for her life with him: "Your husband and children 'rise up and call you blessed. . ." (Deans 107). Chamberlain, though away quite a bit during the war and his four years as governor, proved that he could constantly maintain a strong, loving relationship with his family.