1816

Sor Angela de la Cruz 12

Sevilla, Spain

May 25th, 1965

Dearly beloved Fania,

Every year about this time I would send Carlo a tiny check for the JWJ Collection which I think he sent on with many other and larger ones to Yale. This year I don't know whether to send it to you or to send the entire amount to Mr. Lieber or to send it direct to Mr. Lieber and not bother you about it. However I am enclosing it here and you may send it on to him alone or with others. Thank you anyhow, for whatever you do with it.

Mark wrote me to say that you were moving on the first of June but since I am sure that your mail will be forwarded as you have a much more efficient Post Office in the U S A than we have here, I am sending this to you at 146. Be sure to let me know your new address.

Forgive me, darling Fania, I should never have mentioned all this as you are already too busy and too harrassed to think of other things to do. I shall send the check direct to Mr Lieber and explain to him about Carlo's birthday and my tiny contribution and another year you and I shall talk about the best way to do it. It was thoughtless of me even to suggest it but I can not refrain from sending the whole letter on to you. Pay no attention to any of this except that I am thinking of you and want you to have a short word from me.

Always great love and devotion and more later.

Hope your moving chore is not overwhelming.

And still more love,

Sor. Angela de la Cruz 12
Sevilla, May 25, 1966

My dearest, darling Fania,

I am shocked beyond words at the news in
Reggie's letter about your operation for cataracts. I thought you
had enough to bear with all your other troubles. I am so sorry
and wish that there were something I could do to lighten your
burden. At least you are at home among family and friends and
that should be some comfort. Do be very careful, my darling
hardheaded little girl, and do everything exactly as the doctor
orders, as I have heard from an American friend of mine who had
an operation for cataracts some years ago, that the most important
part is the post-operative care and you must, I repeat, do
exactly what the doctor says. I know how willful you are and how
accustomed you are to having your own way so I am being more
emphatic than I ordinarily should about your being strictly obe-
dient.

I was so glad to get Reggie's sweet message at the end of the
letter so please give her my love and tell her I am now feeling
fine, but a little older and more worn.

I hope you have enough people to come and read to you because I
think you can always dose yourself in a good story after you be-
gin to feel better; I know I read everything that people would be-
bring me and could forget my pains and my troubles in the interest
of a good book. I even read over again many of the books that I
had brought with me. So I hope that you can take the same way of
losing yourself and forgetting everything by having people read to
you.

Do get some one to drop me a line again and let me know how you
are progressing. I know it is a long period of waiting before the
bandages come off but if you are patient and don't worry about
what is going to happen, you should be all right. But I shall be
more than concerned and be waiting for news.

Always my very best love and hopes and wishes for your complete
recovery and my daily prayers are all for you.

Much, much love and kisses,

Sor Angela de la Cruz 12
Sevilla, November 1st

My darling Fania,

Mark's letter from you arrived yesterday and I am get-
off a note to you at Lisbon and then will have more time to write you
at various stops that you will make. I am so glad to have the itiner-
ary so that I can greet you here and there. I shan't be able to write
you at Gibraltar because the relations between Spain and Gib are in
such a state that I fear there is no more communication by mail, al-
though I may be wrong.

The colder weather is here and I am having a time adjusting my self,
even though it is not really cold by any other standards except the
Sevillian.

I am so glad that you are on a southern cruise as the care you will
get and the change from New York will do you good. You can cast away
all cares and responsibilities and let every one else do your thinking
and worrying for you. Was your eye operation successful? And how is
Elizabeth? Did you hear anything from her before you left? I owe her
a letter and am ashamed not to write her more often.

I had a good summer but rather strenuous which is just what I cannot
stand right now. I spent a week down at the seashore with a friend;
then went to the deep country for another week with a family I know.
Then I toured about the province of Extremadura seeing that part of
the country and going over into Portugal and ending up in the Monas-
tery of Guadalupe where we spent ten days at the Novena there. After
I got back to Sevilla I packed up once more and went to Madrid where
I had the use of the apartment of some friends who had gone on vaca-
tion to Alicante. I love Madrid and being there alone I was able to
get the rest I had been seeking all summer. I left there September 23
to get back here for a silver wedding anniversary of two friends of
mine and since then I have been getting the apartment ready for the
winter.

Enough about me. How are you? Your trip sounds wonderful from the
list of places where you are stopping although I know that you have
seen them all before as you are the best-traveled person that I know.
Enjoy yourself, my darling, and relax and rest all that you can. The
sea air is the best tonic in the world. Wish you were coming some
where nearer to me but none of these places are in my immediate vic-
inity.

Well, my lovely Fania, best wishes for a happy trip and you will hear
from me again soon.

Love, love, love to you,

AEROGRAMME
AEROGRAMA

M60

Mrs. F. M. Van Vechten
Sociedade Commercial Garland,
Laidley 3.A. R. L
Travessa do Corpo Santo 10-20
P.O. Box 2127

LISBOA 2, Portugal

SI EN ESTA CARTA SE INCLUYERA CUALQUIER OBJETO, SERIA CURSADA POR VIA ORDINARIA

Nombre y señas del remitente.

Nom et adresse de l'expéditeur.

Sender's name and address.

Sor Angela de la Cruz 12

Sevilla, España

PRIMER DOBLEZ

SEGUNDO DOBLEZ

Sor Angela de la Cruz 12

Sevilla, November 13, 1966

Dearest little Fania,

I wrote you at Lisbon but forgot to put on the address the part about being a passenger on the Queen Elizabeth and am afraid you did not receive it which I regret very much as I think the trip becomes more exciting with the arrival of mail at the different ports. Forgive my subsequent failure to write as my hands are suffering again with arthritic pains and I

have been unable to use the typewriter but I have been thinking about all the wonderful rest you must be having and of course, the places, all of which you have seen before. But having no responsibilities must be fine for a few weeks.

I received your letter from the Azores with the enclosed article which interested me and which I had not seen before. Sidney sends me mostly articles about himself or medical news. He writes about the girls (his daughters), one of whom is married, the second about to graduate in medicine from the University of Edinburgh and the third is doing graduate work at Yale after having graduated "cum laude" from Radcliffe. The girls, like all young people, write only occasionally and he has to fill in with the latest news about them and himself and Vera who is working as attending doctor at Smith College. They all are well but growing older as I am too, alas! I don't mind adding on the years but what I don't like is the weakening of the eyes and ears and one's vital energy. But there's nothing to be done about that.

I hope the cruise has been in all ways satisfactory and that you have been rejuvenated by the sea air and the care and the food that you have not had to plan for nor prepare. It should have been a good preparation for the winter in New York which will be cold and perhaps difficult. All my best wishes for you and lots of love, my darling Fania and I shall not be remiss in writing as long as my hands hold out.

Love, love and more love,

Dorothy R. Peterson

April 29, 1967

Sor Angela de la Cruz, 12
Sevilla

My sweetest, darling Fania,

I had been spending a couple of weeks in Madrid
and when I returned I found your lovely letter from Atlantic City awaiting
me and wept over the newsof your impaired sight. Darling Fania, I am so sorry
to hear this because I know how important it is as one grows older to have
one's faculties alive and functioning. The years mean nothing but the failing
strength and lossof muscles, hearing, etc. It's not the years that I mind so
much as the infirmities. All winter my hands have been in an arthritic state
which kept me from writing even on the typewriter; my handwriting has long
since become completely illegible, but God has been good to me in other ways
and given me a happy welcome in a strange land and a modest home and a devoted
but simple servant and I thank Him every day for considering me one of His
sparrows. And I remember you in all my prayers and hope things will work out
more happily for you.

I have plans for two trips this summer if God gives me the strength. First I
want to go to my niece Danna's graduation from medical school in Edinburgh
on the 19th of July. Then later in the summer after returning to Sevilla for
a week or two, I meet Sidney in Madrid and fly with him and Vera to the U.S.
I shall be with them in Amherst, Mass. for August. and try to come to New York
for a short time before I fly back to Sevilla. While I am in New York I shall
telephone you and if you can come out we could have tea or something together
and a long talk about all your woes and what can be done to lighten them. I
cannot tell with certainty now whether all this will come to pass but I pray
that it may because I have thought of you so often in the past 7 years and
wished that we might meet when you were on one of your many cruises but you
never stop at a port in Spain to which I would gladly come to meet you and
have a heart-to-heart talk. But, God willing, we shall see each other in
September. All my love and best wishes for your well being and happiness,

Dorothy

1830

Dorothy R. Peterson

June 17th, 1967.

My dearest and best beloved Fania,

Your sweet, nostalgic poem addressed to Carlo on his 68th birthday in 1948 arrived today on his birthday and I am reminded so vividly of the many birthdays that I spent with you both and which marked such happiness for me. The exquisite dishes that you concocted were a delight gastronomically and an education. As a hostess you were superb always. The last two lines are completely in my line of thinking and I endorse them heartily. Of course the other parts are also true and to my way of thinking but the last two are the ones I like the best and with which I am in most complete agreement. It was you who made possible that long life devoted to the Arts and to philanthropy and to the making of such fine friends as you and Carlo had. My profound tribute to you both!

I have been meaning to write and thank you for sending me the clippings and the program of our two friends whose lives have been taken at an age when one does not expect death, especially in the case of Philippa. How dreadful that was and how can her parents reconcile themselves to her loss? How are they bearing up under this inexplicable blow? At least they have the satisfaction of knowing that all her life they did everything to help her in the things she wanted to do. That may be a slight consolation.

I love hearing from you although I realize the difficulty you must experience in writing and love and appreciate your letters all the more for your sacrifice in writing them. I must be more prompt about answering them but my hands seem to get worse and worse with arthritis and the typewriter is something that I can manage only occasionally. But you are always in my thoughts and I pray for your health and well being always. Much, much love, my dearest Fania, and I bless you from my heart,

My darling Fania,

I have had you on my mind for some time and been meaning

to write but the "flu" overtook me at Christmas time and, thank God, I had two weeks vacation to get over it so that I could get back to my classes at the University after I had completely recuperated. Meanwhile the wonderful catalogue of Carlo's works by Paul Padgette arrived with your loving inscription and I have been very remiss in not thanking you for remembering me and I apologize profoundly.

The catalogue was amazing in its setting out of the huge amount of work that Carlo had accomplished. One could hardly believe that it was the work of just one man. I have gone over it many times and I am more and more impressed with the size of the gift that he has left to posterity. Of course that does not represent his entire life because his friends also took up a large part of it and his constant attendance at theatres, concerts, operas and all forms of art formed another formidable part of his life. Of course, you are largely responsible for a great deal of it, because without you I am convinced that he could never have accomplished all that he did and which is, in part, so ably summed up in the catalogue which you were so good as to send me. Thank you very very much.

My brother has given me a trip to the U.S. this summer and, although I shall spend the month of July in Amherst with him and his family, I plan to come to New York for a part of August and I shall telephone you to see whether you are in town and whether we cannot meet. I long to see you again.

I received your card from Italy while you were on your cruise and was glad to hear that you were feeling better. I hope your improvement in health is continuing and increasing. How are Donald and Aileen and all the other gay people whom I used to see at your lovely and hospitable "establishment"?

I hear occasionally from Elizabeth Hull and Mark Lutz but I seem to have faded from the memory of those many others. What strange turns one's life takes!

Fania dear, I hope you are well; I pray constantly that you have found consolation and happiness and I wish you all the loving wishes that come to me from time to time.

Thank you again for the memoir of dear Carlo and always my dearest and unending love for you. Love, love, love.