3.

At 12 St. Lukes there was also warm hospitality and lively talk. Writers and artists, actual and to-be thronged there. At Gumberg's one got tea in glasses with a blob of raspberry marmalade at the bottom. At G T's one also got tea, served every day after the four girls came home from their jobs. People would drop in. The tea was in a giant canister, about a gallon, from China, the best tea with jasmine blossoms in it. Simkovitch, the specialist in Oriental art at Columbia Univ. had presented it and he was often dropping in himself. He had also presented wonderful Chinese prints and scrolls which were on the walls. It was a gay place and the prevailing crowd was made up of the young going-to-do-its who were just beginning to feel around, to get into real work or the substance of it. The tea was served plain with thin slices of orange floating in it. There was little privacy, much talk, very late hours. Young men hovered about; love was in the air. It was very important. Life was important and one's work, in G T's case - poetry - were important. It was a small world with magnetic currents of common interests drawing people together. If one girl at 12 St. Lukes left for one reason or another, another took her place. Hannch 'Lickering had supplanted another girl, of earlier vintage and Florence Zuckermann (Fritzi) had supplanted her. In time Fritzi was to leave, Dorothy Stoner vanished, G. T. married Robert Wolf and I took her place at 12 St. Lukes. Only Helen Black of the old crowd remained; Jessica Smith and Marian Tyler were new blood but in a short time Helen and I decided four was too many and we eliminated everyone except ourselves. I stayed there until I went to Europe in May, 1922.

In the spring of 1920 I was living on a top floor apt. at 93 Greenwich Ave., a room with a sloping ceiling looking out on one tree and washlines. It was furnished with old things and rag rugs to look like a place in the country and it did. After G T met Robert Wolf they sometimes retreated to my place on Kends when I would be away; they also had another retreat, later on, at Robert's place at 49 King St. During this spring G T and myself began to write occasional notes to one another although we were in the same town. Another thought of writing with serious intent and we both had already happily fallen in love unhappily. Robert was a harbour for that unhappy love of G T's and in the first spring that she knew him, she was uncertain what it was to be with him. In the summer she went to Kent, I to the Catskills; we corresponded and it was not until December that she decided to break off with Robert. He came to see me Christmas Day at 93 Greenwich, in despair, bringing an etching of Zorn's and I tried to console him with the thought that it was not over. I was right; by spring they had married and left while it was still chilly for Farmington, Conn. where a Toscan Bennett had loaned them the use of a two-roomed log cabin.

If you visited then at Farmington, you took the train to Hartford and taxied out. A farm was nearby where they got milk and two kittens, bite and gray, called 'Eats and Shelley. They disc urged visitors. I hope it was at work on a novel and the novel preoccupied everything. The time preceding this had been very fruitful for G T and though she continued to write she began to tackle prose and to try to do something that eventually might sell and bring in money. They had little money; Robert's father who had money, refused to help and it was the beginning of a long painful battle to get the means to live and work. I was a reader for H L Mencken at the time on Smart Set and also read for other magazines edited by him and Nathan. G T sent some poetry to him but he had no taste for it and in fact was writing about poetry in a way to infuriate all the new young poets, many of whom attacked him in

4. Genevieve Taggard 1918-1926

various publications. GT wrote an article attacking his lack of taste in poetry; so did Malcolm Cowley and Allen Tate. We thought it possible Mencken might take a story for Smart Set but Engaged, a short story later published in the Liberator, quite evidently would not suit Smart yet. She began writing several other stories and wrote some poetry also. She was going to have a baby and I visited them at Farmington over Labor Day. Albert Rhys Williams was already there. There were many chores but the country was beautiful; they were working and filled with hopeful expectation and earthless determination. GT was full of plans; how to make work and life come true. Robert talked prose and took the line that prose was the really important way to write. When he began to write poetry he did it to show he could, if he wanted to. In spite of the lovely country, the work, I felt she was lonely; and the day she took me to the train, Bob stayed behind; when she said goodbye, her eyes were filled with tears. One had the feeling that she missed New York, was fearful for many things, was certain that it was up to her to make all go well.

They did not leave Farmington until well into November. By that time it was almost near the date the baby was due. They had decided to go to California where they wouldn't have to worry about coal, warm underwear and winter wardrobes. There were probably other, deep underground motivations for this choice. They went to Boston, stayed a few days at the Puritan Hotel and then off to Chicago. Robert's relative, Joseph Schaffner, came to the train and insisted that they stay at his place. He was a young father and would not hear of GT making the long trip west until after the baby came. They stayed there until she went to Michael Reese hospital in December, none too happy with relatives but seeing a lot of other people in Chicago, Harriet Monroe, Sherwood Anderson and others. Floyd Dell's Priary Bush had come out that summer and Floyd's influence over Robert was strong; when Marcia arrived she was first named Mary Alma and F Dell was named godfather, I the god-mother. Floyd was afterwards eliminated for C & S Wood of Los Gatos. She was very happy over the baby.

They went to Los Angeles and from there almost at once to Berkeley. From Berkeley they went to San Juan Baptista where they took a house. They were living at this place when Isailed for Europe in May, 1922. From that date until November, 1924, all that I know of them came through letters from her and from Robert. The letters were sent to me in England, Germany (Berlin), Italy (Florence); Paris, We could, France. See letters for data on this period.

When I returned to the States in November, 1924, it was to stay only a few days in New York before going up to New Preston where Bob and GT had a big stone house that they rented from a farmer across the road. "Is name was Grossenbacher. The house was a noble one; it and the house across the road were of stone, had been built by the same family in the early 1800's; it was kept in the family until sold to a wealthy widow who in turn gave it to the Salvation Army for one dollar after her young lover hanged himself in the barn. Grossenbacher bought it from the Salvation Army. It had a great row of sugar maples in front reaching on each of the road, going down hill to the valley, called Merry-all. Farm-houses below lighted up at evening; the sun set across the valley; there was a grove of apple trees. Rooms in the house were big and bare; it was a hard house to run, to keep comfortable. The kitchen had an old wood stove, a rickety oil stove with two burners for cooking. The sink had a pump. There was however steam heat. Very little furniture but

5. Genevieve Taggard 1918-1926

long shelves of books. On top of the shelves an occasional beautiful bit of turquoise blue silk. Pits of pale China jade lay along the top of the silk. There was a big sunny dining room with a gay new linoleum on the floor. The furniture was painted a bright Prussian blue. The room for Marcia upstairs was enormous - all the rooms were too big. It was hard to get any help locally to help in that big house but at that time there was a local girl, named Josephine, who occasionally came to help out. Robert had a studio partitioned off and lined with new pine, in the big barn. GT worked upstairs in a room devoted solely to her papers, books for work etc. It was fall when I came but the following summer when I stayed there several months, the garden they had planted before my arrival was up and flourishing. They had planted everything too thick and could hardly bear to see me go relentlessly through the rows thinning out. GT said that the carrots they had the year before had grown without thinning though she admitted many were pretty crooked. They had planted also wonderful flowers under the window of the room on the ground floor that I occupied that summer; it was rich with zinnias, cornflower, marigolds, portulaca, pinks, and later on purple and deep red asters. There was meadow on the hillside sloping from the house to the farms below; one picked wild strawberries here, also got poison ivy but later there were wild flowers in abundance, queen anns lace, buttercups. Apples matured on the trees in the orchard and we made them into cider that year.

I took John Herrmann who had also been living abroad and came back on the Rochesbeau with me up to New Preston. GT and Robert were at the train; a tingling chilly fell evening. We drove from New Milford in a taxi, talking excitedly. We spent several days there. There was a change in Robert, very noticeable to me after nearly three years. He was more tense and in a deep sense, unlike his old self. Perhaps not so unlike as accentuated; very disturbing. But it was so good to talk; his aberrations, even when manifest, could be pushed aside. Both John and I had to go to the middle west; it was months before we returned. I returned first; GT had written much poetry, articles, criticism, Robert had had a volume of poetry published but his novel upon which he had already spent five years, was not yet finished.

The summer I spent there upon my return from Iowa was the last that GT Robert and Marcia spent there as a family. They may have made other trips there but only for short periods. Robert was in his barn the following summer (1926) alone and Catherine Anne Porter and Ernest Stock in the house. John Herrmann and I had married and had a cottage in the valley of Merry-All.

## Addresses of G T from 1919 to 1926

13 St. Lukes Place - basement apartment with two front windows, below street level. Windows had iron bars. Two large rooms separated by small dark kitchen. Long hallway, length of two rooms. Bathroom on other side of hallway.
To March 1921

49 King St. - Apartment used by Robert Wolf before his marriage to G T and both of them used this place as a retreat from 12 St Lukes with its total lack of privacy

Kent - G T had a vacation here in 1920, wrote much poetry, summer 1920 Bob was also with her.

Holcroft Farm, c/o Myrin Harris, Farmington, Conn. - G T and RW left New York after their marriage in March 1920 for a log cabin owned by Tossan Bennett. This was the adjacent farm.

RFD 419, Farming- Their address at the log cabin ton, Conn.
Until early
Nov. 1921

Hotel Puritan, Boston - G T and RW went to Boston for a few days, In stayed at this address. Afterwards came to New York Nov. 1921 on way to Los Angeles.

c/o Joseph Schaffner, 4819 Greenwood Ave., Chicago. G T stayed at this In Dec. 1921 address (cousin of Bob's) until time for birth of the baby.

Nielson 1 Reese Hospital, Chicago: Mercia was born here Dec. 13

2741 Pine Grove Ave. Chicago, Ill. - G T stayed here until departure for Los Angeles; they did not stay there but went up the coast almost at once to Berkeley.

2420 Channing Way, Berkeley, Cal. Next stop. I think this was G T's mother's address. Stayed briefly.

San Juan Bautista, Cal. Took a house here for several months; until July, I think.

1060 Broadway, Austin Hill, San Francisco - This was the house of Sara Bard Field. They stayed here for 6 weeks.

1037 Broadway, across the street from Sara Bard Field: - had apartment here

1628 Taylor St., San Francisco; moved here. Bob had a place at Bolinas.

51 East 16th St. New York: G T stayed here. Bob was back at Nielson's at Nyack. Mercia was at Agnes de Lima's, Valley Cottage, New York.

New Preston, Conn. G T advertised for house in country; rented old stone house in fall of 1923. RR station, New Milford.

46 Perry Street; Steady residence at New Preston broken in fall of 1925; G T lived at this address winter of 1925-26.

Account of the origin of the description of the masquerade ball, in
The Executioner Waits, by Josephine Herbst. Published 1934.

When I returned from Europe in 1934 and visited GT at New Preston,
Conn. we talked of many things that had happened during the three
year absence. She told me of a masquerade ball to which she and
Robert had gone in San Francisco during the period that they lived
there. The story made a vivid impression upon me: I remembered
the details of the costumes GT and RW wore and even more important,
for the purposes of the novel, the prevailing mood of the evening and
of GT as a participant. The ironic elements of the evening had not
escaped GT. She had described the ball as an occasion for raising
money for some worthy cause - what the cause might have been, has
escaped me - the resulting sum was a pittance. People worked hard at
gality and many, like GT, went about in a mood of alienation.
RW did not have a good time, failed to mix, and his standing about
looking lost, hurt GT and made her in turn see more clearly the whole
shame of the evening, without losing her humor at the remembrance of
details which struck her as ludicrous.

I did not touch this material until 1934 but the memory of her account
was so vivid that when I wanted an episode similar, I drew it out of
recollections of what she had said. In particular, the mood she had
presented was what I most needed for the purposes of the book, and
though most of the details are invented, the original source of it
came from GT's account of her evening. The characters also were
transposed in several cases from the actual persons present at the
real ball. Colonel Goods, for instance, was actually C.E.S. Wood,
who was present at GT's ball and in the identical costume described
in the book. The Columbine, described in the book, was Sara Bard
Field, and as she had actually appeared. The costumes that GT and
RW wore were transposed upon Victoria Wendell and Barney Blum. The
original costumes as worn by GT and RW had been contrived at the last
minute, out of whatever elements were at hand, and to make up for the
lack of conventional masquerade garb, GT had contrived a costume for
each of them that poked fun at the prevailing fashion of psychoanalysis.
GT's costume had been a fluffy ballet costume, short abbreviated skirt,
intended to represent "Suppressed Desire". This is the costume worn
by Victoria Wendell in the book. The sweat shirt with a huge letter
"N" on the back, to indicate "I" for Inferiority Complex, had been
worn by Robert Wolf at the actual ball and by Barney in the book. In
addition many of the characters in the book were drawn from actual
people. Old Mr. Blum, appearing at the ball as "Blomglue" was in
real life, Dad Stern, the father of Max Stern. The character of
Barney and many of the same elements as that of Max Stern. Reynolds
of the book was patterned after A. B. Anderson, a brother-in-law of
Max Stern who goes to the ball in the book as "Diogenes". Nelly of
the book was after Anderson's wife, Max's sister, called Dickie. She
appears in the costume of Lady Macbeth at the ball. The sister of
Barney in the book, an old maid in the book and in real life, is
called Lulu (her real name was Helen) and she goes to the ball, the
fiction one, as Old Lady Hubbard. Old Lady Blackstone in the book
was also taken from real life; I have forgotten the name of the real
woman but such a person, a wonderful old lady and friend of Dad Stern,
did exist and did have the attributes given to Mrs. Blackstone. "The
entire question of political prisoners, I.W.W. and the opposition
to the war, was actual for the period of the book, 1917 and was similar
to attitudes at the Stern home during that period.