Aurelia Frances Plath (nee Schober; April 26, 1906 - March 11, 1994) was the wife of Otto Emil Plath, the mother of the American poet Sylvia Plath, and her brother Warren, and the grandmother of Frieda Rebecca Hughes and Nicholas Farrar Hughes.
Aurelia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Franz (Frank) Schober of Bad Aussee, Styria, and his wife Aurelia Grunwald (Greenwood). Sylvia Plath made reference to her grandmother by making "Esther Greenwood" the name of the heroine in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. The relationship between Aurelia and her daughter was a rather problematic and ambiguous one, for on the one hand they were exceptionally close to each other, and on the other hand Sylvia Plath often claimed that she hated her mother. Their relationship is portrayed in Plath's novel The Bell Jar, and in the poem Medusa.
After teaching for two years at Cape Cod Community College in Hyannis, Mass., Aurelia Frances Plath devoted herself to editing the personal correspondence of her daughter, who committed suicide in 1963. "Letters Home: Correspondence 1950-1963, by Sylvia Plath" was published in 1975 and formed the basis for the play of the same name by Rose Leiman Goldemberg.
In addition to her son, she is survived by a brother, Frank Schober of West Chester, Pa., three granddaughters and a grandson. Aurelia died, aged 87, of complications from Alzheimer's disease in Needham, Massachusetts.
