Did Mary Baker Eddy ever play any sports or games?

Records from Eddy’s childhood are sparse, however, Irving Tomlinson, a member of her household in her later years, recounted Eddy saying that she often preferred reading the scriptures to playing with other children.¹ Looking beyond her childhood, however, Charles Wentworth offers us an example from the time when she was known as Mrs. Glover and lived with his parents, Alanson and Sally Wentworth, in Stoughton, Massachusetts, from late 1868 to 1870. Even though Eddy was often busy writing, she would find time to set aside her pen and engage with her host’s children. Charles wrote: “My memory concerning even the smallest details of our experience with Mrs. Glover is most acute, due probably to the fact that her sojourn with us was one of the brightest spots in my life. Mrs. Glover was cheerful, sprightly, kind and courteous.”² He continued in another letter: “I also remember one time she bought us a ‘Backgammon Board’ and taught us, my sister and I, how to play backgammon. Mrs. Glover at that time a great lover of the game ‘Euchre,’ and, if I remember right, she was a very good player, and I was also fond of the game, and so we had some very good times, times that I shall never forget.”³